The Fire Below
by The Very Last Valkyrie
Summary: The harsh words of a mother turned a young Blair Waldorf to ice and even as one of London's most famous beauties, she spurns the company of men and vows never to love. There's just one problem with playing with fire: you might just get burnt. AU/Hist.
1. Preface

**_Could it be - why yes, it is! Another historical AU from the Valkyrie!  
To anyone who was looking forward to more of Harmony & Hedony, I am very sorry. After leaving that story for a while I lost my passion for it, and to be honest the plot ran a little to the ludicrous to begin with. This one will hopefully be better, both in storyline and staying true to the characters (I refer of course to the epic Chuck and Blair of seasons one and two, not the pale imitations of season three). After all - I haven't written any lemons in a while...  
Enjoy.  
_**

**

* * *

**

**Preface**

"There is one woman in a million who finds pleasure in her nuptial bed." Eleanor's nimble seamstress' fingers (for that was what she once had been, even if such a profession lay far in the past) swiftly braided up her daughter's thick hair. "The others accept their lot. Marriage is for the making of heirs, Blair – there is no other feasible reason for its existence, except to cement alliances."

Blair's reflected eyes looked back at her from the mirror, their darkness so absolute that even someone looking closely could not have distinguished between pupil and iris. "Then why is called wedded bliss, Mother?" She asked naively.

Eleanor snorted. "It is called wedded bliss because of what comes _from_ it. She who bears sons receives riches and titles and all sorts of pretty things." The smile on her rouged lips was calculating. "Would you not think yourself in bliss if you had a dress of every colour and fabric imaginable? If you could cover yourself from head to toe with diamonds and still have money left to burn?" She slipped a pearl headed comb in the back of Blair's coiffure, patting it into place with one pale hand and watching the young girl's face intently.

"Those women, Blair – those ones in a million? They are whores, always remember that. Any woman who enjoys the society of a man in the bedchamber is a whore."

The young Blair had looked fearful, and the mirror seemed almost to crystallize as a look of resolve formed in the back of her eyes. It would take five more years for that hardness to melt – and on that day, Eleanor would receive a letter. The handwriting would be slim and elegant on wafer thin, handsomely embossed paper. When the seal was broken, Blair's mother would read only seven words: seven words that would haunt her until the end of her days.

_Then I suppose I am a whore._


	2. Un: Noir

**Un: Noir**

Blair carefully adjusted the draped skirts of her black dress, smiling archly at the mirror. Even for a mourning gown, she knew it was exquisite: heavy black silk that would be spoiled with mud the moment she exited the carriage, thick lines of jet beading and superbly delicate embroidery. The corset squeezed her already small waist to fashionably minuscule proportions, and the chic black hat – a mere puff of lace and jet pins – was the _pièce de résistance_.

It would have been easy to think Blair vain, watching her dress so elegantly for a funeral; but unlike other girls, she wasn't dressing for attention. Blair Waldorf dressed herself with style in much the same way a snake garlanded itself with bright bands of colour – as a warning. _Look,_ that cold beauty said. _Look, but don't touch._

Almost five years had passed since her mother had first explained the facts of life, but Blair still looked upon the world with Eleanor's hard eyes. Love was infatuation, keepsakes trinkets, intimacy merely friction. Blair took joy in the higher pleasures of literature and art, and didn't need the brush of another's skin over hers to remind her of who she was. Moreover, she loathed being touched, preferring to cover herself from head to toe in fabric. Society's matrons saw this as modesty and approved; gentlemen saw it as a challenge.

Blair saw it as protection.

"Miss Blair? Are you ready?" The neatly capped head of Dorota, Blair's Polish maid, poked around the door.

Though Blair considered herself as British as could be, in all truth she had been born in the heart of the Balkans, her heavily pregnant mother hidden away while her father negotiated borders for Queen and country. Dorota had been barely as old then as Blair was now, but as the oldest of eight there was nothing she didn't know about birthing babies – be they English aristocrats or Polish peasants. She had been Blair's nurse throughout childhood, and now she existed in the special capacity of surrogate mother, maid-of-all-work and the best gossip in London.

"I'm ready." Blair gave her hat a final tweak, smiling in the mirror and watching it not reach her eyes. They remained cold; glittering like the jet pins in her hat.

The maid clasped her hand. "Lovely, Miss Blair. You do your mother proud."

Blair sniffed. "As she couldn't deign to be here for the funeral of one of her only living relatives, I'm afraid I can't comment." She accepted the gloves that Dorota handed her, pulling them on with practised ease. "I cared nothing for the elder Humphrey, and the son is nothing. The daughter will be snapped up, though. She's an innocent, kittenish thing; perhaps she'd make a good charity project."

"Perhaps," Dorota agreed diplomatically. "But will you go, Miss Blair? The carriage is waiting."

"Of course." The young woman turned her head first to one side and then the other, allowing a touch of eau de toilette to be dabbed behind each of her ears. Then she picked up her reticule, a sombre black for the occasion, and left the room, lifting her skirts with all the grace and precision of the queen herself. Back inside the blue panelled bedroom, Dorota leaned on the doorframe wearily.

"_Mój Boże_," she said wearily. "I don't care what that woman –" 'That woman' always meant Eleanor. "Might say. That girl will have a husband before the year is out, or I'm the king of the Belgians." She fanned herself enthusiastically with one of Blair's summer fans, a glorious construction of yellow Chinese silk. "There is far too much fire in her – far, far too much."

**#**

**#~#~#**

**#**

"Archibald."

"Wha...?"

"Archibald, will you wake up?"

Someone was shaking Nate, and he woke with a start to feel the gazes of most of society's matrons burning into him.

"I beg your pardon," he said gruffly, then continued to repeat the phrase as his surroundings became clearer and he remembered where he was.

Rufus Humphrey may have been a profligate buffoon (and it had been an end to the familial cash flow that led to his impromptu dive into the Thames and subsequent drowning), but he genuinely cared about his children. In honour – or perhaps in mockery – of this paternal affection, the church was swagged in enough black crepe to garb an entire army in mourning. Daniel and Jennifer Humphrey were in the first pew, alternately sniffing and nodding along raptly with what the vicar was saying by turns. The funeral was packed out, and suddenly Nate remembered the familiar voice that had woken him. He turned, and a pair of familiar black eyes met his own.

"Chuck."

"Who is she?" Chuck Bass' face was sharp with interest, alive with the scent of a new hunt. Nate sighed; after bedding most of London, surely Chuck _had_ to be tired of chasing after anything in skirts.

Didn't he?

"Who's who?" Nate asked, his voice still gritty with sleep.

"First pew, brown hair, next to the female Humphrey."

The girl shifted a little as Jenny mewled once again, raising a lace-gloved hand to rest momentarily on her sobbing companion's shoulder. As she did, Nate caught her profile: breathtaking, but a little too mysterious for his taste. Nate liked to see what he was pursuing, to read in a girl's face whether she wanted him or not. This girl was all darkness, the same way that Serena van der Woodsen, at her side, was all light. Serena...

"Well?"

"I don't know," Nate admitted grudgingly. "But I can ask Serena, try and find out who she is." He sighed. "Please, man, I can't take another one of your seek-and-destroy missions. You really want another one following you around, shrieking about lost virtue?"

Chuck smirked. "A man is judged by the debutantes he deflowers. I myself am in good stature, Nathaniel, though I can't exactly say the same of you." He followed Nate's gaze, focusing on the back of a bright blonde head. "It's been Serena now for, what? Three years? More?"

"That's none of your business."

"Ah, but it is." The younger Bass clapped a hand on his companion's shoulder, possibly to dispel the air of irritability between them and possibly to continue the process of waking Nate up. "If you saw something you liked, Nathaniel, then I as your friend would endeavour to help you get it. As my friend, you are going to help me get what I want _and_ win over the girl of your dreams at the same time – you can't lose."

Nate folded his arms, still a little hungover and grumpy. "And just how will I do that?"

The congregation rose with one accord, and the two young gentlemen had to struggle to be on their feet, gloved hands rifling through hymn books to find the right page. Both let out a simultaneous groan when their eyes alighted on the young Humphreys' choice: it was sentimental, it was saccharine, and it was overused. Chuck enacted his displeasure by firmly closing his mouth and smiling cheerfully at all the frowning mourners who looked his way while Nate warbled his off-key way toward its final conclusion.

"Heaven's morning breaks and earth's vain shadows flee; in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me!"

_And with that_, thought Blair wryly as Jenny sobbed into her nattily jacketed shoulder. _Rufus Humphrey goes to meet his maker and abandons his dearest Dan and Jenny to the tender mercies of their chosen gravediggers._

As the congregation began to break up or form closer, more tightly knit groups, Blair felt the prickling between her shoulder blades which indicated someone was staring at her. Casting a demure glance over her left shoulder and trying not to grimace back at the horribly contorted expression of the crucified Christ, she caught a pair of striking dark eyes focused on her with a shameless, burning interest. Then, much to her chagrin, the gentlemen who possessed them (well cut suit, starched cravat, curiously handsome angled face and, of course, those eyes) lowered one eyelid in a wink.

Blair spun back around, her heart pounding with the sheer and damnable familiarity of the action. Irrationally, she found that her delicately lace-gloved right hand was clenched, the thumb tucked between her first and second fingers in the age old sign against witchcraft, trickery...and the devil.

* * *

_**I'd like to give love to all you fabulous reviewers, without whom **_**The Fire Below_ might never have existed. I just wish I could reply to all of you. Many thanks to: _HnM skinnys, SaturnineSunshine, YourGrace, Missy06, tvrox12, Guardian Izz, BassKingdom, TriGemini, Hngauthier, ghostbones, itsolgatime, Tiffany, nostalgiakills, Manoella Nascimento, Nora _and_ ilovecujo1993._ I wish you all Chucks of your own._**


	3. Deux: Orange

**Deux: Orange**

Serena van der Woodsen prided herself on being in possession of a truly splendid curricle, and it was to this end that she invited Blair to come for a drive with her – once they had left the drab greens and dour greys of the churchyard far behind, and Serena's innate gaiety was finally allowed to replace her sombre expression. Blair accepted, for Serena was one of her dearest friends, one of the few people she felt comfortable around. Despite this, however, Serena always made her feel a little outshone: she was the finest of their ton, golden haired and blue eyed and beautiful, and the eternal summer of her loveliness only seemed to throw the icy pale Blair into disfavourable relief. Serena's temper was sweet, her pedigree was impeccable, and she had received thirteen marriage proposals before even reaching her sixteenth birthday.

Blair had received two, and one of them had been from the gardener's boy.

"You have an admirer," Serena announced as they bowled across London in the greatest of luxury. "Charles Bass could not keep his eyes from you, _and_ he didn't sing the hymns." Her blue eyes were wide, a testament to a paradigm of virtue.

"Who's Charles Bass?" Blair asked, her voice a little disinterested as she looked out over the lush green parkland which bordered one side of the road, its emerald slopes dotted with ladies and gentlemen playing at bowls, walking past their rivals with the merest soupcon of smugness or in repose on picnic blankets with their spawn. The sunlight caught the ruby ring she wore beneath her right glove, making the stone sparkle and flash.

"Why, the son of Bartholomew Bass, the late duke of Richmond."

"The son of the late duke of Richmond," Blair repeated, distinctly nonplussed. "Is that to say he is the _current_ duke of Richmond, S?"

Serena shook her shining head. "No. His mother is in parts unknown, but she still regains the title until he takes a wife."

"Then he had best to take one quickly, lest the lady live it up in the Dordogne forever."

A light breeze caught the girls' hair, causing Serena to laugh engagingly as several strands whipped about her glowing face. Blair merely adjusted a hairpin so that it was sticking more firmly into her scalp and said nothing.

"You _are_ coming to the ball tonight?" Serena affirmed once they had passed around a corner and out of the public eye. "You don't have to stay at home just because your uncle –"

"Cousin."

"Just because your _cousin_ was buried today?"

"Heavens, no." Blair allowed her nose to wrinkle a mere unladylike eighth of an inch. "Not appearing because of that wretched Humphrey?" She rolled her eyes. "Where else could I possibly be forced to wear white and make small talk with strangers I care absolutely nothing about?"

"Have a care, Blair," advised Serena, though her mouth was twitching with merriment. "Somebody might think you don't care for Almack's."

"I _loathe_ Almack's," Blair replied emphatically, her skin automatically peaking into gooseflesh at the thought of all those hands, all those hipbones and those shoulders which would be liable to brush against hers over the course of the evening. She sighed. "But with Mother and Father away, it would seem that the task of impressing the Waldorf goodness upon society hinges upon me making an appearance."

"That," Serena agreed. "And your introduction to Chuck Bass."

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

It was barely eight, and already Blair's brain seemed to be bursting from her skull with boredom. Dressed in a gown of filmy white tissue which was de rigueur for every debutante, she had taken care to assert her individuality with the addition of miniature silk orange blossoms to the toes of her dancing slippers and a slim diadem of pearls atop her dark head. Heavily embroidered gloves rose nearly to the level of her puffed sleeves, and Blair sought to hide herself within them; to mask her true thoughts and feelings beneath the delicate material.

"Lady Fanshaw, how lovely it is to see you." It was hard not to flinch as the plump woman eagerly took Blair's hand, her own distinctly damp even through two layers of fabric.

"My dear," the lady burbled, her many chins swaying in unison with the words and prompting within Blair's mind the unflattering comparison of a doughy pendulum. "Such a shame your mother couldn't be here tonight, but such a wonderful gown you have on! You've met my Isobel, of course."

Blair felt a swell of pity when she looked at Isobel Fanshaw. Although redheaded, her looks were not in the least negligible – rather, her features were slim and sharp, more vixen-like attractive than actually pretty. It was lucky she had not inherited her mother's looks, or she would have had no change of making a good match. As it was, any prospective husband would have to care enough for that striking face to ignore the fact that his future mother in law was a hippopotamus.

She smiled pleasantly at Isobel, who smiled back. "Good evening, Isobel."

"Good evening, Blair. My mother was right, that gown is exquisite – Madam Roché, of course."

"Of course." Blair's smile waxed genuine for a moment, then dimmed once again as she turned back to Lady Fanshaw. "An émigré, of course, but the best. If you'll excuse me." She dipped an elegant curtsey which Lady and Isobel Fanshaw mirrored, then headed across the room to where Serena was just entering with her mother, Lady van der Woodsen. Serena's white dress was filmy and it seemed to shine in the candlelight, making the tiny white flowers sprinkled through her coiffure look like tiny stars.

Blair's mouth filled with bile.

"Blair." Lillian van der Woodsen folded her daughter's friend into her arms, the heavy ruching on her violet gown pressing comfortably into Blair's cheek. Unlike Serena, she was aware of the difficult relations between Waldorf mother and daughter, and as such she always sought to be a motherly presence to one she considered a motherless child. Blair, although comforted by Lily's gesture, began to feel the familiar swimming sensation and tightening in her chest she always gained from being touched for too long. Gently, she disentangled herself, watching the older woman's face form lines of shock as she remembered.

"Blair dear, I'm so –"

"Pray don't apologise," Blair replied, her voice smooth as silk but her eyes indicating that perhaps this was a conversation best kept for later. She turned to Serena, smiling as she regained her composure. "S, won't you come and sit with me? There are very few suitable gentlemen here tonight."

That was her excuse: 'there are very few suitable gentlemen here tonight'. Society had thought the young Miss Waldorf delicate when she had fainted halfway through her first dance at the debutante ball, but in reality the memory of those hot, moist hands on her flesh and that unfamiliar face so close to hers still haunted her at night. She never danced, she never flirted, she could hardly bear to play cards because of the other players' proximity – and moreover, she didn't want to. Let the other girls find lords and dukes and counts and take their fill; Blair could not love, would not love, and would marry where she was placed to ensure the succession of her line.

The very thought filled her with dread.

"We can't," Serena said firmly. "I want you to meet Lord Bass."

Blair gritted her teeth, though on the outside her face still looked smiling and serene. "Still not His Grace yet? Or has he failed to find a wife within the last seven hours?"

"Blair!" Serena took a firm grip on the fan hanging at Blair's waist and led her that way, surging inappropriately across the room to where two young men were lounging elegantly against the far wall. "You mustn't say such things! He is still Lord Bass, Marquis of Winchester, and considering you're the one he spent the whole of Rufus Humphrey's funeral staring at you'd do well to mind your tongue!" She gripped Blair's shoulder, watching her friend pale at the contact. "With such a malaise, you may never do better. Now come on!"

"Ladies." One of the gentlemen stepped forward, his blue eyes bright and his smile engaging. "Nathaniel Archibald, tenth earl of Exeter, at your service."

"My lord." Serena smiled, taking the young man's hand warmly between both of her own. "It's been too long. Were you at the funeral this morning?"

"Yes." His handsome face darkened. "A horrible affair, and what with the wailing and the weeping it quite –" There was a cough from behind him, and both Nate and Serena started guiltily. "Won't you introduce me to your friend?"

"Oh, yes." Serena took hold of Blair's fan again, using it to pull her forwards. "Lord Nathaniel Archibald, the Honourable Miss Blair Waldorf, daughter of our ambassador to the Balkans."

"Miss Waldorf." Nate took Blair's gloved hand and raised it to his lips, quietly assessing the girl who had caught his friend's attention so. On second inspection, he could see nothing more to her than what had already been obvious in the church that morning: the dark beauty, the unnatural perfection. He admired it, but it unnerved him, and his eyes flicked back to the sweet familiarity of Serena like an object pulled by magnetism. "May I introduce my friend Lord Charles Bass, Marquis of Winchester and the duke of Richmond incumbent."

The other lounger levered himself lazily off the wall like a fly peeling from a strip of paper and took a step forward, joining the three within the circle of candlelight. When his face came out of the shadows, Blair had to gasp – it was the very same damnable creature who had winked at her in church! Though there was no denying that he was strikingly handsome – in possession of a sharply angled face which was as arresting as it was interesting, not to mention the long, lean physique of a prowling panther – she felt immediate anger for his earlier impertinence rush to her face, painting her cheeks scarlet with rage.

Chuck Bass just smirked.

"If you'll excuse me, my lord –" This with a deferential nod to Nate in order to make it very clear to whom she was addressing her apologies. "Serena. I feel suddenly nauseated."

And with that, she turned and stalked away. The room fell deadly quiet, for a cut as obvious as had just been made to a member of the gentry could get one exiled from Almack's forever. Blair didn't care; her face felt hot and her hands felt cold and if Almack's weak watery punch was all the remedy she could lay her hands on, then so be it. As she situated herself in front of the refreshment table and began to set about ladling the wretched stuff into a glass, the level of chatter in the room rose until it had resumed its usual, gentile-raucous volume. Blair took a sip of punch and grimaced.

"Have I irritated you in some way?"

Blair raised her head, surprised that she was unsurprised to find Chuck Bass standing before her.

"Yes," she said bluntly. "You winked at me in church today. Not only would such an act have been heartily inappropriate under any circumstances, but it was a funeral for a relative and I was grieving."

To her chagrin, he snorted. "Please. You were attempting to cultivate some kind of flood warning system in Miss Humphrey and amuse yourself at the same time."

"You didn't sing the hymns," she snapped back, dark eyes blazing.

"You were watching?"

Chuck was enjoying himself immensely. Here was a deadly, nubile, angel-faced harridan with a tongue like a snake who loathed him; it made a change from the scores of girls who swooned on him or made themselves damsels-in-distress for his attentions. Blair Waldorf had hair like silk and eyes like fire, and her chest was heaving with irritation so that small, well-formed breasts rose and fell in a way that was most pleasing to the eye.

"Would you like to dance?" He asked, surprising Blair again.

Her face flamed once again. "No."

"Why?"

"I do not wish to."

"But you must." His eyes danced, and he cast one gloved hand about the room. "You insulted me in front of the entire assembly, and now it must seem as if we have made up."

"I – I –" Her eyes were wide. "I cannot."

"Why?"

Blair felt trapped like the rabbit by the fox, her universe shrinking to a small sphere which only encompassed her and the reprehensible individual asking her to dance. "Dancing is not to my taste."

Chuck took a step closer to her, suddenly worried as her flushed cheeks blanched. "What are you so afraid of?"

Though he had only noticed her that morning, Chuck knew he had to have seen Blair Waldorf before. He cast his mind back over the balls, garden parties, musical recitations and games of faro which had made up the season, searching for some memory of her, some reason why she looked like the devil was on her trail when he asked her to dance. Suddenly, he seized upon it – a willowy figure swathed in white tissue, falling like a scythed reed, her head striking the hard floor of the ballroom with a sickening sound while her imbecilic partner shrieked like a puppy.

"You're the girl who fainted, aren't you?" He said slowly, sounding out the words for sense. "They said you had a weak heart, but Georgina...you're the one who can't be touched." A smirk spread slowly across his winsome face, looking oddly skewed next to Blair's pallor. "The ice queen."

"A ridiculous rumour," Blair said briskly, brushing aside the secret which could scotch her chances of a good alliance forever. "I had caught cold in the park that afternoon, that is all. If you'll excuse me, my lord, I am quite fatigued." She bobbed a quick curtsey, making sure to bow her head in deference to his peerage before hurrying away, her face still too pale and her eyes too bright.

"And thou art dead," Chuck quoted softly, his smile curling like a flame about paper as he watched her go. "As young and fair as aught of mortal birth; and form so soft, and charms so rare, too soon returned to Earth."

* * *

_**Chuck's quote is from Byron**_**,**_** if anyone was wondering - I thought it was appropriate. Now, time for my thank yous.  
**_

_**Thanks to my fabulous beta Mayven, the hyphenation queen, who doesn't even watch Gossip Girl and still beta's this baby for me. Then we come to you horrible lot, who seem to be warming to season one-esque Blair very nicely, so **_**_thanks to all the usual suspects and some newcomers: _****Guardian Izz, Krism, LisaLevine, YourGrace, Hnm skinnys, ChairxoxoNaley, itsolgatime, TriGemini, SaturnineSunshine, BassKingdom, PINKmarshmallowXOXO_ and_ Flipped._ I wish you all balls, ballgowns, best friends and crass society matrons._**


	4. Trois: Vert

**Trois: Vert**

Thursday tended to be Chuck's day off from whatever it was he usually pulled himself out of bed to do: drinking, gambling, womanising, occasionally stalking through the library and applying himself to poetry in his quest for better flirtations than those he himself could devise. He had never felt any desire for originality in his conquests – after all, one debutante was much the same as another – but neither was he stupid. It was the business of every young gentleman to erudite in all matters from the sciences to literature, and he couldn't deny that his encyclopaedic knowledge of Shakespeare had been known to make ladies weak at the knees.

All the same, it had not been for nothing that he had quoted Byron upon Blair's exit from Almack's the previous night. She was indeed ethereally lovely, but with a secret heart of fire; a will o' the wisp with a core of steel. As a girl who would have rejected him on mere principle even without her..._condition_, that particular little quirk only served to make her seem more of an attractive prospect.

_To incite desire in one who has never felt it_, he thought, lying carelessly on a chaise while one of the maids held a glass of ice to the slightly more painful of his throbbing temples. _And even more, to incite desire in a creature whom the very thought of desire disgusts._ It would be a war hard won, he guessed, after many battles, but it was a war Chuck was certain he would win.

He had never lost, after all.

He dismissed the maid, whose small pink mouth made a moue of disappointment that he couldn't bother himself to care about. Retrieving paper and pen, he sat down at his writing desk and wrote a short note in elegant, flowing cursive. Then he folded it up, sealed it, called for a footman to take it for instantaneous delivery and then rose. Thursday may have been a day of rest for a Chuck Bass in usual spirits, but with his hangover fading and his resolve strengthening he headed up the grand staircase, calling for his valet as he did so.

He had an appointment to keep.

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

_If we shadows have offended_

_Think but this, and all is mended:_

_I have a secret you wish to hear_

_And I shall call on you today_

– _CB_

Insufferable! The very idea of his calling upon her after the way he had behaved yesterday!

Blair paced the drawing room like something caged, her pale green day dress gliding silently across the honey coloured wooden floor in a way she found most irritating. Usually a creature of coldly dished reserve and ice, Blair found herself wishing that her heels made more of a ring upon those expensive floorboards – more, that they would set up a din to send Chuck Bass fleeing back to whichever part of Hell had spewed him out in the first place. Taking sparse pleasure from this image, she all the same forced herself to be quiet, small hands worrying over and over in their neat lace gloves. It would not do to alert the servants to her ire, particularly after her abrupt return from Almack's the previous night. Dorota could smell a scandal a mile away, and if they were to discover that her mistress had cut a duke...if he ever were to be a duke, of course. His lady mother must be laughing herself sick.

Satisfied at this new imagining, Blair seated herself demurely on a pale blue chaise, ringing the bell for tea to be brought. She fixed herself a cup with lemon, then re-examined his note. The footman had been tardy in presenting it to her, and she gritted her teeth at the knowledge that it was almost the hour for calling, and that she would soon have to play hostess to that – that cad. That bounder. That scoundrel. That –

"His Lordship Charles Bass, the Marquis of Winchester!"

That blackguard who called before the preordained hour! Well, if that was how he wished to play, then _she_ would refuse to rise as he entered the room (later claiming a malady of the foot to put paid to any gossip). But he would know that she'd cut him, once again, and how little regard she held for his _de futuro_ title.

"Miss Waldorf, good day."

But her legs were straightening of their own accord, and she was rising to her feet with her long green skirts falling straight and elegant. It seemed that her mother's training was more deeply imbedded than she had previously ascertained. In lieu of a proper greeting, however, she gave him a tight smile.

"My lord."

"Will you not shake?"

Her cheeks flushed. "You know I will not."

"Not even with those charming gloves I can never seem to catch you without?"

Blair's dark eyes snapped upward from where they had been resting modestly on the Turkey carpet to meet Chuck Bass' catlike, arrogant ones. "If your only purpose in coming here today has been to torture me, then I suggest you leave at once." She sniffed. "I'm sure there are others who inexplicably crave your sadistic attentions."

"But I choose you." He took a step forward and into the room proper, and she had to admit grudgingly that he looked well: dressed in a finely cut suit of deepest green which set off her own gown to advantage and was complimented by a discreetly embroidered champagne coloured waistcoat. His cravat was spotless, and so well appointed that it appeared to have been tied by someone who had written several books on the subject. "And I take my tea however you like yours, thank you." He took a seat on the chaise which was situated catty-corner to her own and placed one well blacked boot on the opposite knee quite artlessly.

Blair found herself hoping uncharitably that the polish would stain his trousers.

"Besides which, Miss Waldorf, we have good reason to be friends. I meant what I wrote in my letter – I have a secret to share."

Blair snorted with scant delicacy as she prepared his tea. "If you call that tawdry little missive a letter, you have clearly never received anything of the sort. I prefer my post not to be written in verse, thank you, and I would also prefer you neither to desecrate Shakespeare nor refer to me as your friend. I assure you, you shall find nothing in the nature of friendship from me." She passed the teacup, wincing as the tips of her gloved fingers brushed against the back of his equally gloved hands, and at the queer electricity which resulted from that slight touch. It made her skin burn, and she wasn't sure that the feeling was entirely unpleasant.

"An alliance, then?" He countered, seemingly oblivious to Blair's discomfort. "If you agree with the course of action I have deemed most suitable."

Blair took an acerbic sip of tea. "And what course of action would that be?"

Chuck smiled. Granted, he had been more than ready to extend himself in order to engage her affections; this seemed almost too easy. Her heart (for he was sure there was one lurking beneath that icy exterior) would be her greatest weakness in the struggle between them for her soul. His eyes slipped to the tantalizing flesh of her neck, so pale and clear that the sunshine made it almost seem to glow. He wondered how it would taste: like the alluring scent of orange blossom and lavender and white musk which hung around her, or how it appeared: like ripe strawberries and cream. He imagined pressing his lips to the wildly beating pulse in that little hollow at the base, of tracing it with his tongue –

"Your course of action, my lord? Or shall I wait around all day while you grin inanely?"

He laughed. "You may do what you will, Miss Waldorf, and I doubt that any man could stop you." _Though I would like to be the one to try; the one to pin you down and –_ "But the matter I am speaking of, of course, is the marriage between my friend the Earl of Exeter and your Miss van der Woodsen."

Blair sat bolt upright. "Do you mean to say that –"

"Yes, Miss Waldorf. For a very long time. There is, however, the matter of the Dowager Lady Archibald."

"Why?" His companion asked sweetly, selecting a sugared wafer and biting into it with her sharp white teeth. "Is she as accommodating when it comes to titles as yours?"

Chuck smirked. "You looked me up."

Blair smiled coldly, so coldly that tendrils of frost seemed to curl outward from her lips. "That, my lord, would require some level of interest in your doings. I heard of it from Serena, after you had expressed some interest in mine." She finished her biscuit and gestured carelessly at the plate for him to help himself. "But what of the Dowager Lady Archibald? Is she so averse to losing her only son to such a kind, loving creature as Serena?" Though her mouth was still wintry, her eyes blazed with a kind of pure fire Chuck couldn't help but admire. Despite the obvious differences between the two young women, Blair clearly loved Serena and wanted her to be happy. All the same, he decided to evade her question for now, instead answering with another.

"Do you think that she loves him?"

She considered the question. "She is certainly more cordial with him than with any other gentleman of her acquaintance, and the smile on her face when she saw him..." She trailed off, gazing for a moment into the middle distance. "If she does not love him yet, then I am sure she will come to."

"Good." Chuck took a gulp of tea, shuddered in disgust and replaced the cup in its saucer. "Now, the issue which stands in the way of their happiness at present is Nathaniel's mother. She has very strict views of how young ladies should behave, and it occurs to me that her idea daughter-in-law would be something like you." Their eyes met across the short space of air, and he saw Blair blanch. "Never fear, Miss Waldorf, I am not suggesting that you become a sacrificial lamb to please Nathaniel's mother. I am simply suggesting that in order to give Miss van der Woodsen the best chance of appeasing her future mother-in-law, you might...coach her a little."

Blair eyed him suspiciously. "And what are you expecting in return for such information? Gentlemen like you never offer secrets without some thought of reward."

The idea was already half formed in the young semi-duke's mind, but he had to bite back the request hanging on his tongue: that he wanted a kiss, the touch of those fingers on his lips, a tiny sliver of her white shoulder. All such demands would have him barred from her house and her bed faster than he could say 'come into the garden, Maud', so Chuck settled upon the response which was predetermined and predestined to form the offer he presented.

"The condition from which you suffer is not conducive to a good marriage, Miss Waldorf. Gentlemen may see you as a Diana in your reserve and beauty now, but this will too soon fade." He leaned forward on the chaise until his knees almost touched the skirt of her gown. "Let me help you. I live to take enjoyment from the more material things in life, and I cannot bear to see a creature such as yourself –" And at this point, his eyes fastened on her small rosebud mouth. "Denied these pleasures because of some medical misfortune. I can teach you how to take a man's hand without flinching, how to dance a quadrille without fainting dead away. The world would be your oyster, Miss Waldorf; were you not too afraid to reach out and take it, that is."

Blair's gaze upon him was simultaneously rapt with attention and chilly with disdain. "All this for a little piece of society gossip I could have picked up at the card tables? You place your value too high for a person who does not yet merit the title 'Your Grace'."

Chuck did something then which surprised them both. Drawing Blair's hand from the prison of her lap, he neatly unbuttoned her glove and drew it up to reveal the tender flesh of one wrist. Slowly and fervently, he bent and pressed his lips to the warm skin, feeling her pulse jump in response.

Blair felt her breath catch, and her stomach went to war with her rapidly beating heart as she tried to decide whether she would faint with disgust or swoon with delight. Perhaps it was the sheer novelty that no one had ever touched her _there_ before, but the giddy sensation she always associated with prolonged physical contact felt nice: like when she was younger, before her curse had set in, and she had whirled around and around hand-in-hand with Serena until they had collapsed, feeling dizzy and breathless and sick. That was how Chuck Bass' kiss made her feel. All the same, she decided not to lose consciousness, for both their sakes; it would be liable to send the teapot flying.

"I agree to your offer," she said shakily, eyes still closed. "On one condition."

"And what is that?"

Her hand drew back from his like a whip crack, and Chuck looked up to see Blair's eyes blazing dark fire.

"_Never_," she said, in a voice as calm as it was deadly. "Never do that again." She stood, and the assumption was that he, as a gentleman, would follow. "Only my husband will ever kiss me, Lord Bass, and if you ever attempt to do anything of that sort again then all bets are off between us."

"Your, Majesty," he said mockingly, giving a deep and elegant bow from the waist. "This game will not be over until I declare it so."

And he backed out of the room, still bowing and grinning wickedly, leaving Blair to subside onto the chaise longue with a sense of dread forming in the pit of her stomach and a miniature flame building in her still racing heart.

* * *

**_You've guessed it - it's time for my thank yous, and as ever the first goes to the marvellous Mayven who makes me a better person, both spiritually and gramatically *winks*. Then, onto the curiously eager and charming people who for some reason chivvy me onward: _calliope26, Infinitywr, RustyJimmy, Guardian Izz, annablake, ChairxoxoNaley, HnM skinnys, Bass Kingdom, tvrox12, LisaLevine, Krism, TriGemini, itsolgatime, READER120, SaturnineSunshine, MaddieMaddie_ and_ JustRaeInc_. I wish you all passionate kisses when you least expect them to make you go weak at the knees._**

**_And as for you, my lurkerish friend? If you can alert or favourite, please drop me a review! It only takes two minutes (and I don't even mind if it's just 'WTGG?') but it warms my heart up crazy.  
_**


	5. Quatre: Bleu

**Quatre: Bleu**

_If we are to achieve anything then the matter must be put delicately; I must appeal to her good nature and affection for the earl rather than give any show of disapproval of her spirits. Mark me well, however, my lord – the moment I think Serena will be in any way inconvenienced is the moment I withdraw both her and myself from the field of play._

_Make sure that Lord Archibald sends pink roses to her tomorrow, for those are the flowers she loves best._

_Sincerely,__  
B. Waldorf_

_**~#~**  
_

_Lady Sparks the Elder is to give a ball in three weeks' time, and I trust that you shall be well enough prepared by then for Miss van der Woodsen to be at least introduced to the Dowager. The lady never attends Almack's, so your friend may enact her training there in order that you and I might both observe her._

_I will call on you tomorrow for your first lesson._

_With bated breath,  
C. Bass_

_**~#~**  
_

_Dearest Miss van der Woodsen,_

_I pray you accept these flowers as a gift from your very dear friend. Your friend shall now be exceedingly impertinent and ask if you have as yet any unclaimed dances for this coming Wednesday._

_Impatiently,  
Nathaniel W. Archibald_

_**~#~**  
_

_My dear Lord Archibald,_

_Thank you, thank you for the roses! They are my very favourite as I am sure you know, and the enclosed note was most charming. In response to your request, I will save the supper dance for you, in recognition of your lovely gift._

_Yours very sincerely,  
Serena van der Woodsen_

_P.S. If you do not fear asking one of the hostesses at Almack's, I will happily waltz with you also._

**_#_**

**_#~#~#_**

**_#_**_  
_

They were both dressed in blue for Serena's first lesson. Serena herself looked like a princess from a fairytale in the palest shade of that colour, a wide and exquisitely worked lace collar masking her clavicle while still hinting at its contours. Blair wore midnight, her gown simple and well cut, pulled in tight to her tiny waist and flaring out at the shoulders to award them more breadth. In expectation of the day, she had not had Dorota style her hair into its usual high chignon; instead, she had flouted the rules of polite society by wearing it loose, pulled back from her face with one long braid which ran from temple to temple around the back of her head. Serena – for she was Serena – had worn her hair in a similar style, but with a tiny pink rosebud peeking out from behind one ear.

Blair couldn't help smiling when she saw it. "Who sent you flowers, S? I know well that your mother prefers lilies, and would never let such an innocent bloom into her house by choice."

Serena blushed a becoming pink. "Nate – that is to say, Lord Archibald – was kind enough to send me a bouquet. He has the supper dance on Wednesday."

"Does he?" Blair's brow wrinkled thoughtfully. "Well, Serena, I'm sure you're wondering why I invited you here with such strange requests as to hairstyle and accessories."

Serena rolled her eyes. "I grew up with you, B; nothing seems strange after that."

Blair laughed and swatted at her. "Hush! In any case, what I want to talk to you about is a matter I am sure is very dear to your own heart, and as such is close to my own also." She took Serena's elegant hands in her much smaller ones and fought viciously against the urge to drop them, instead focusing all her might on looking intently into her friend's bright blue eyes. "What do you know of the Dowager Lady Archibald?"

Serena looked surprised at the question. "Why, only that she is little in town and prefers to stay in the country. Why do you ask?"

"Because he – because _I_ believe that if you were to adapt yourself a little, it would not be long before you were a countess in your own right." Blair laughed lightly, though her belly felt full of lead. "Lord Archibald adores you, Serena, even a blackguard cad with no manners who barges his way into drawing rooms without invitation and is shockingly familiar can see that."

Serena's eyebrows drew together. "So you think that he would – that he and I –"

"Without a doubt."

"But his mother –"

"Is of the old school, yes. However, I believe this can be overcome." Blair felt a pang and she once again gripped the hands within her grasp, suddenly free of the terrible nausea as it began to feel oddly as if she was hanging onto them by the merest measure of her fingertips. "As much as your freedom and gaiety recommend you, S, the Dowager is likely to be looking for modesty, humility, and a daughter-in-law who will at the very least be able to convincingly fake being in awe of her. You will need to be a study in societal boredom in order to gain her approval."

Serena looked to be having some sort of paroxysm.

"But fear not." Blair raised one hand which was encased today in a light, pearlescent sheath of cream coloured lace before laying it lightly on her friend's shoulder. She took a deep breath as her stomach began to churn, but kept the hand in place for a few carefully measured moments before removing it once again. "I think that – to put it a little artlessly –_ I_ am the type of girl that she wants, and _you_ are the type that the earl does. In your purest form, Serena, you are beautiful and sweet; but you need to learn to have two faces, as we all do."

Serena smiled sadly at her friend. "Sometimes, B, you need to learn to remember to take that mask off."

"Yes." Shaking off the air of concerned sympathy that hung thickly in the air like treacle, Blair stood and shook out her skirts. "Now, come. Lady Sparks is giving a ball in honour of her daughter's engagement to the _onerous_ Carter Baizen, but it is expected that we attend. By then I must have you prim and proper and ladylike on one side, pretty and pert and lackadaisical on the other. First –" She raised an item which had previously been concealed behind her back. "It may be a little finishing school, but you walk like a lass at a country fair. The book goes on the crown of your head, and we shall not rest until it stays put when and wherever you take a step!"

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

"And so I ask you," Chuck declaimed, twirling Blair's gloves between his fingers – he had demanded she remove them at the beginning of their lesson, and her bare fingers were even now beginning to itch – and admiring their craftsmanship. Only the wealthiest could afford to buy genuine Belgian lace, and he was beginning to expect that there was more to this untitled ambassador's daughter than met the eye. "In these silly romances young ladies read nowadays, what attribute do the heroines unfailingly find most desirable?"

Blair raised an eyebrow. She had begun the afternoon sitting bolt upright in the centre of the chaise, but now she was bored and tired and her elbow was propped up on the frame, palm curved to fit her cheek. "I should have thought _that_ would be obvious."

"Enlighten me."

She rolled her eyes to heaven, wondering how many more trials the Almighty might unleash. "As ever, the object of the greatest desire is always what one cannot have."

"Incorrect!" The delicate lace gloves slapped the chaise before resuming their revolutions in the hands of one Blair could only conclude was a complete psychopath.

"The truth," Chuck continued, oblivious to that cruel thought but basking in the warm glow of his companion's general censure. "Is that the most desirable entity is that which one does not even _want_ and this, Miss Waldorf, is the foundation upon which we shall build your success."

Blair's features remained firmly set in a mask of scepticism. "Surely one cannot desire that which one does not want, my lord; that is hypocrisy."

"On the contrary." With as much nonchalance as if he were extracting a handkerchief, 'my lord' removed a flask from an inner pocket of his waistcoat and took a swig, relishing the icy burn of the alcohol as it slipped down his throat. He turned to face the wall which bore Blair's portrait, perfectly cognisant of another icy burn as its subject's real gaze bored into the back of his head. "Although it is human nature to want what one cannot have – the consummation of this desire was, of course, our first sin – it is even more natural to lust after what we hate. After all, what is hatred?" He looked into the limpid eyes of the painting, their look of gentle tolerance so contradictory to the epitome of burning dislike he usually so enjoyed.

"Hatred, my lord?"

"Hatred is trepidation of that which we fear may catch us in the end." He turned to face her, gaze sweeping down the spilling tendrils of dark hair and white column of her throat to the barely concealed shoulder. "Hatred is fear of the unknown."

"Hatred is built on reason," Blair countered, eyeing his navy blue coat and sapphire silk waistcoat dispassionately. "And what do you mean by saying that such an emotion is the foundation upon which we will build my success?"

"Simply." Chuck took a seat at her side, ignoring the look of disgust twisting her pretty features as she drew back her skirts. "You have never shown any inclination for the society of men, which makes you unknown, which unsettles our would-be wooers. Women like Miss van der Woodsen are, if you will pardon my saying so, more obvious in their charms and therefore more accessible. No man in his right mind is going to start a fight which he knows he cannot win, especially with a woman who holds him in no regard whatsoever."

"And the crux of your argument is..."

"That when we are done, no man shall be in his right mind." He smirked as her cheeks flushed, the colour staining her pale skin like claret spilled onto a pristine tablecloth. "You are new, and you are fresh – a debutante among debutantes. The most important lesson I can give you, therefore, is not how to act in a manner which will be found desirable; no, it is how to enact your own natural desirability. In this, however, you cannot be stunted by fear of another's touch."

Blair looked down at her bare fingers and said baldly, "I do not wish to be a whore."

"And I would not debase you."

She looked up, startled, eyes burning bright but free of deception. "What would you do then, my lord? Seduce me yourself? Have me dance on a string to entertain those who wish me to fall? Oh, I know they exist – they think me haughty and cold and vain, and all because I cannot follow the lead society sets me. Truly –" Their gazes met squarely, and hers had the look of the hunted within it. "Through it all I shall have a hard heart, and a hard heart is hard won, and difficulty deters even the bravest of champions. I do not know whether your plan can succeed."

"Well, it can," Chuck replied staunchly, ignoring the odd twisting in his belly. Would he be doing her any favours, in the end? The choice he provided was simple: a rich marriage and a cold bedding, or passion's heat and abject disgrace. For the first time, he wondered what happened to the many debutantes he turned from his bed.

But this was no ordinary debutante.

"I want to up the stakes," he said unexpectedly, and Blair blinked.

"How so?"

"Where our deal ends, there is another. Within a month, you must get a man to fall in love with you, to propose marriage."

Blair raised an eyebrow. "And if I don't?"

"If you don't..." The smile curled his lips like the canniest of cats. "If you don't...you spend the night with me."

"You are insufferable!" She flung herself towards the furthest corner of the chaise, scowling with enough venom to kill a snake charmer. "I will never, never, _never_ lie with you, and not in a million millennia shall I desire such a situation."

"So you doubt yourself, then; your ability to ensnare a good match."

"No!"

"Then make the bet."

Her jaw was set in a hard, clear line like pale marble, breast rising and falling with each enraged inhalation. "You are going to lose."

"In this, as in all things – I shall not."

* * *

**_One more exam, kiddies, and the glories of Victorian Chair will be my sole focus once again! I'm sorry this chapter took so long - it had several different conclusions, all of which didn't quite seem to fit. I like this one the best, though, and I also needed to get in the idea of the second bet. Who's excited? Now, my thank yous to all you patient, lovely people:_ MaddieMaddie, itsolgatime, , Star-crossed92, , calliope26, Pixiefanpire, Nester, , wrighthangal, mroisman, BassKingdom, SaturnineSunshine, abelard, Bellxoxo, NoFearOfChic, Lalai, LisaLevine, Krism, TriGemini, schizoOntheDancefloor, tvrox12, YourGrace, HnM skinnys, violetka, LovelyAmanda, Hngauthier, sweetshorti868, dreamgurl, vivalachair, anon, ggloverxx19, Erica L _and_ Noirreigne _(whom getting a review from is like getting a hug from the president - all hail the queen of Chair historicals!). It seems that this list just keeps getting longer, and I wish you all beautiful blue gowns, lectures from hotties in waistcoats and indecent proposals._**


	6. Cinq: Pêche

**Cinq: Pêche**

Blair awoke on Wednesday morning with a feeling of apprehension that she was sure could rival Christ's pre-crucifixion jitters. The windowpane was grey, sky streaked jagged with lines of black; any calls she had planned to make would have to wait until the weather improved. Sighing, she removed her silk sleeping mask and stretched. Although the songbirds were silent this morning, it seemed as if Blair's heart were doing enough screeching for an entire absent aviary: she had made a deal with the devil, and the devil always came to collect. _Ah_, _Faustus_, she thought bitterly, pulling a robe towards her from the foot of her bed and slipping her arms into its heavy, peach coloured sleeves. _Now hast thou but one bare hour to live, and then thou must be damned perpetually!_

Perhaps not one hour, but time was certainly short before tonight's soiree with Satan. Serena undoubtedly needed another lesson before she went dancing into the fray like a lamb into the Valley of Bass with a fortune around its neck.

Blair sat down at her dressing table and began her toilette, wondering at Dorota's absence. Her mind was too busy to expend too much energy on the trivial, however, so Blair focused on Serena's education as she began to rub jasmine scented cream into her hands. It was unquestionably true that her friend had taken to the lessons in deportment like a swan to swimming – and why should she not, with such a prize dangling before her – but Serena's manners were still far from perfect. Lily was a sweet woman, but her ever-changing parade of suitors had made sure that Serena and her younger brother Eric were left alone for much of their childhood, and Blair wasn't sure if such damage could ever be quite undone. The van der Woodsens had been raised by maids and family friends, and although she was only a few months Serena's senior, Blair still felt responsible for the pair. They were the loveliest people in the world, but their societal carriage left much to be desired.

Where was Dorota? Blair did not apply rouge or lip paint like many young ladies of 'quality', but she still needed someone to dress her hair.

"Dorota?" She called into the still air, and then louder, rising and pulling on today's pair of gloves: pure white silk, and softer than baby's breath. "Dorota, where are you?"

It was at this moment that an enormous bouquet of peonies decided to make its appearance – apparently unaided – around the bedroom door, and Blair screamed.

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

A little way away in the city, Chuck Bass was sweating quite proficiently. His white shirt clung to his back, his trousers were tight-fitting, and his eyes were narrowed with concentration. In one hand, he held a sabre: a slim, elegant weapon, not blunted like a foil and therefore only suitable for those who excelled at fencing – and Chuck was, of course, one of these.

"_En garde_," he said politely, and then proceeded to go at his opponent like a crazed Ottoman who had taken too much hashish. The other man dodged, parried, ducked, met Chuck's thrusts blow for blow and set steel ringing against steel. They were well matched, but the unlikely grace with which the young, still only incumbent duke moved he could do nothing but best his opponent in the end. Once he was triumphant, Chuck removed his mask and threw it to one side. It landed on the floor outside the _piste_, and a lackey rushed to collect it.

Chuck grinned and helped his friend up. "You are getting better, Nathaniel. You still feint too much, though, and you need to learn to keep a poker face."

Nate scowled. "We need thicker masks."

"Perhaps we do." Chuck clapped him on the shoulder and pulled him over to one corner of the room where a repast of bread and cold meat and still colder – and more welcome – beer was waiting. Nate sighed with pleasure as he took his place and set to with great gusto, piling his plate high and consuming each mouthful faster than Chuck had previously been aware normal humans could masticate.

"Slow down," he advised, raising a eloquent brow as he took a sip of beer. "I am sure you do not want to be laid up with indigestion tonight and have to forfeit your supper dance with a certain lady."

Nate choked. "What – what did you say?"

"Calm down, Nathaniel, a dance is not a proposal and therefore not something you are honour bound to tell me about." Chuck smirked. "I, however, have been taking a certain interest in your affairs of late. My sources inform me that you have the supper dance with Miss van der Woodsen tonight."

Across the table and over the top of a particularly large ham, a pair of blue eyes narrowed. "By sources, I take it you mean Miss Waldorf."

"Indeed I do."

"Don't play with her, Chuck," Nate said bluntly, surprising his companion. "She is a good friend to Miss van der Woodsen, and as such I care about her welfare."

Chuck snorted. "You care about Miss van der Woodsen and only Miss van der Woodsen, and there is no point denying it. All the same –" He passed a monogrammed napkin over his forehead, wiping away the last traces of sweat. "You don't need to worry about Miss Waldorf. She is more than capable of taking care of herself and, as such, more than capable of resisting me."

"She turned you down," Nate said wonderingly. "The great Chuck Bass –"

"There is no need to repeat it; I got the gist when she told me herself." The 'great' Chuck Bass scowled at the roast beef on the table before him as if it were the source of all his ills. "Nevertheless, we share a few pans in the fire; she is helping me on a little project in return for some help on one of her own."

"Which is?"

"Nothing you should trouble yourself about." If looks could kill, the roast beef would be deader than it already was. "And about Miss van der Woodsen – I was fishing." He looked back at Nate, and his dark eyes were gleaming. "As the not-so-lovely Miss Sparks is soon to be married to Carter Baizen, he will soon be infecting a brand new pool of society and no longer my problem. Your mother is therefore safe to come to the engagement ball she would have declined for that very reason and to meet the admirable Miss van der Woodsen. If all goes well, you can pop the question and be wedded and bedded before anyone suspects it's not a marriage of convenience and begins making sheep's eyes at you. You will have a countess, I will have a conquest, and we will both sleep happier in our beds at night."

Nate's eyes bulged. He appeared to have swallowed a bone.

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

"It is only me, Miss Blair!" The bouquet announced, and Blair sagged with relief. Of course she hadn't _really_ thought that her bedroom was being invaded by two dozen peonies in a walking vase, but it was always good to be on the safe side.

With a groan, Dorota placed the massive arrangement on the sideboard and stepped back to admire her handiwork.

"Was there a card?" Her mistress demanded, and the maid smiled a very smug smile and produced a heavy rectangle of paper from her pocket. Blair took it eagerly into her gloved hand, but her face first fell, then resolved into blatant fury at the curt missive:

_Have spoken with Nate. He wants her. Will bring Lady A. to G. Sparks' ball for meeting._

_These are your favourite, don't try to deny it._

– _C_

"Can one have a person executed in this day and age, Dorota?" Blair asked calmly, serenely shredding the note into a thousand tiny pieces which fell to the thick carpet like snow. "Is it possible?"

"Not unless he steal, kill person, try to kill person or hurt queen," Dorota said sagely. "But I can speak to Vanya if –"

"Lord, no." Blair subsided onto her bed in a flurry of peach coloured ruffles. "If he is to be murdered then I want to do it with _my own hands_."

"Whom will you be murdering?" Serena asked brightly, entering the room with cachet in a topaz coloured morning gown, the rich colour setting her skin aglow and her golden hair molten, even in the murky light of a London deluge. "Oh, beautiful flowers, B – who are they from?"

Blair smiled sweetly. "Not from, dearest S, but for: for a funeral. " She rose, and to Serena's eyes it seemed like scheming Blair had been subverted beneath governess Blair, and she didn't know which unnerved her more. "Come, you can help me get dressed, and then we can move onto today's lesson. I was thinking that we'd work on introductions today, and then light societal chit-chat. A little luncheon, a little turn on the pianoforte in what is acceptable for the public ear and then off to Almack's for the promised dance later; agreed?"

"Agreed," Serena said vehemently, and then set to work ransacking her best friend's wardrobe.

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

"I think this one."

"That is red."

"No one ever wears red!"

"Debutantes do not wear red, Serena – at least not those who'd rather have a husband than the title _chère amie_. A woman who sets her cap at a somewhat higher form of suitor wears white." Blair drew out another gown, then held it against herself. "What do you think of this one?"

Serena cocked her head on one side. "It _is_ becoming...but I still think the red."

"No, Serena."

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

The punch bowl at Almack's had been dubbed 'Bass' Corner' back in the day when it had been Chuck's great-grandfather leering at the debutantes in their filmy white, but tonight Chuck had not decided not to take up that particular mantle. Instead, he lounged by an alcove, occasionally glaring at any young couples who tried to approach for a word – or, more likely, a fumble – in private. After seeing off one particularly ardent pair, Chuck tilted back his head and closed his eyes. It had been a long day, what with trying to school Nathaniel in not being Nathaniel and trying to instruct himself in the virtues of patience. He liked victories, not battlefields, and undoubtedly this one was bound to be particularly bloody. It was to this end – reducing casualties, that is – that he was watching both the door and the window, and found himself situated beside Nate when their quarries entered with Lady van der Woodsen and began to smile and greet their acquaintances. Chuck stayed precisely where he was, and smirked. She would have to come to him...eventually.

"My lord."

"Miss van der Woodsen."

"My lord."

"Miss Waldorf." Their gazes met, his lazily triumphant and hers impassive as stone. "At the urging of my friend here –" He gestured to Nate, who was already taking Serena's hand to lead her onto the floor. "I would like to humbly request the first dance."

Blair blanched, and her eyes widened. "I am afraid that –"

"Come come, Waldorf," Chuck continued as the other pair hurried away to join several others. "I have already requested a waltz from one of our charming hostesses, and a waltz I shall have. Besides –" He leaned towards Blair, so close that his breath tickled her ear and stirred the curls in her coiffeur. "If we are seen communicating together without a dance, the ton will assume that you are purely my amusement for the season and gentlemen, as you well know, do not like their fruit pre-picked."

Blair's head was already spinning. "You well know enough what happened the last time I attempted to dance in front of society! How do you know that such an event will not occur again?"

"Simply," Chuck said calmly. "Because you are with me."

And without another moment's consultation, he took Blair's hand in his and led her out to join the sea of couples.

The world had begun to swim the very moment their fingers first touched. Blair felt the dizziness, the pain, but also that same spark – those same fireworks, even – that she had felt before at that one forbidden, seemingly chaste kiss to the inside of her wrist . Taking the hand of a rake and libertine like Chuck Bass felt like taking a footstep towards a darker pleasure, a place where angels and god-fearing debutantes feared to tread. She felt the eyes of Quality upon her and her stomach heaved violently, the colour rushing to her face.

Chuck signalled for a waltz and hissed, "Hand. Shoulder. _Now_."

Blair obeyed on autopilot, one hand rising to lightly brush the shoulder of his jacket and make her feel yet sicker. A couple was never closer than in this, the waltz, the most dangerous of dances, and Chuck's grip was on her waist was like a vice – ostensibly to form the required position, but in all reality holding her up. Blair wished for a rod of steel at her core instead of a spine as she felt the bile rise in her throat.

They began to move.

"I can't do this," she whispered. "Please –"

"Hold on to me."

"No..."

"Miss Waldorf, if you do not want every person who matters to see you faint once again and scotch your chances of a good match forever, you will hold on to me."

"I can't. I feel..." She was drifting, and this was the hazy stage which preceded dreaming in the black.

"Blair, hold on to me!"

The shock of her name – her given name – coming from his lips hit her like a splash of cold water in the face. Blair's eyes snapped open and her fingers bit into Chuck's shoulder, curling round his palm, fusing them irrevocably together. She focused on the warmth of his hand beneath their combined pairs of gloves, the strength of the muscles in his shoulder. If he were a machine and not a man – a sum of only his parts – then she could do this. If she could hold onto something that was soulless and empty and that could hold her up, then she wouldn't faint; she wouldn't vomit.

With a devil, she could do this.

"Now breathe..."

She inhaled the computation of a million scents: the perfume of all those eyes, still watching and waiting. They performed a final revolution, and then they were still – in the middle of the dance floor, not moving, not shifting even an inch as the other dancers began to drift away.

"Very pretty," said Lily van der Woodsen distinctly, and applause broke out around the assembly rooms.

In the all the clamour, Blair looked at Chuck, the steady force of his gaze making her feel as if she were being consumed by a blaze she could not see and had no name for.

"I loathe you," she said out loud, to confirm it to herself.

His face was expressionless, void of anything but a slight flicker behind eyes that Blair suddenly realised were not brown: they were hazel, golden, catlike; they chilled her and warmed her to the marrow of her bones, and they held something within their depths that she was sure no living person was ever meant to see.

"Then why," Chuck inquired, leaning forward until their faces were mere inches apart and they were sharing each breath. "Are you still holding my hand?"

* * *

_**I'd like to tell you a secret, ladies (and gents, if there are any of you out there). This secret is shameful, but I'm going to share it with you all the same. Truth be told? Chuck is a whore for detailed reviews. He goes wild for them. They eclipse even the nape of the neck as his ultimate turn on. Just between ourselves, he told me he plans on visiting detailed reviewers wearing some nice breeches and a billowing white shirt (even if they are more Regency than Victorian). There may be...top hats involved.  
Let the games begin.  
I love y'all: **_**Infinitywr****, thegoodgossipgirl, Star-crossed92, Twilights-Pain, Krism, Bass Kingdom**** _(your comments on tea and dishonourable intentions just plain make me happy)_, TriGemini, MaddieMaddie, vivalachair, CBBW3words8letters, HnM skinnys, SaturnineSunshine, tvrox12, Comtess d'Armagnac _and_ abelard.****_ May you all enjoy...well, what Chuck has in mind is unashamedly unspeakable, but I hope you all enjoy it nonetheless._**


	7. Six: Violet

**Six: Violet**

"I think Serena performed quite admirably."

Blair stirred her tea demurely for a moment before taking a sip, her features neither shadowed with fatigue nor displaying any emotion save absolute sincerity. There was a soft flush on her cheeks from the warmth in the room, and the delicate fluctuation between cream and rose was as startling as it was becoming. Chuck, however, had no interest in making a study of it.

"Would you prefer chocolate, my lord?" Blair inquired solicitously, one lace-covered hand moving in a gentle arc towards the teapot. "I can send for a pot if that would please you."

"Blair," Chuck said baldly, using the name he had every time he'd necessitated addressing her since her near swooning fit the previous evening. "You are being polite. You are wearing a gown in a shade I have, in your hearing, professed to admire. You are neither chastising for using your Christian name, nor for forcing you to dance at Almack's last night." His eyes narrowed, their hue deepening to the troubled gleam of dark whisky. "What manner of game are you playing?"

"Playing?" In her lavender striped day gown, Blair didn't look up to mastering the rules of the game, let alone stacking the deck with her neat, slender fingers. She widened guileless brown eyes at Chuck, and the pearl headed pins in her upswept hair winked and flashed with a secretive promiscuity. "I am playing no game, my lord; I am merely honouring you as my natural lord and master by the laws Almighty God ordained for my sex, praise his name and amen."

"You _are _angry with me for the dance," the said natural lord and master observed coolly, brushing a non-existent piece of lint from the knee of his dove grey trousers – a perfect match, as Blair well knew, to her dress choice for the day. "And you are attempting to express that emotion by endeavouring to bore me senseless, thereby effectively ending our little wager when I become too disgusted and bored with the monotony of parleying with you. You may then cut me out of your life with the minimum amount of bloodshed and the cleanest of countenances. I commend your tactics; Napoleon Bonaparte would have recruited you to lead his troops in a second. The Battle of Waterloo would have been over before it even began with you at the helm."

Blair's face underwent a miraculous change in the space of mere moments: first it became pouting and petulant, then ice white with rage, finally settled into the blank set of the queen in a chess set after losing a not-so-insignificant pawn. Internally, she wrestled with the all consuming desire to castrate her erstwhile dance partner with the sugar tongs, instead biting her tongue hard before saying, "Your continued presence puts me at a disadvantage in the marriage mart, and we both know it. However, my focus for now is Serena. Our wager –" Her eyes met his with fresh determination, their tenacity singing like an inverse siren's call even across a drawing room and Lady's Waldorf's second best willow patterned tea service. "Stands."

"And yet you stand to lose far more from this gamble than I."

"With or without it, I have nothing to lose." Blair touched the teacup to her lips, but did not drink. She stood, and her violet skirts tumbled neatly into place like so much lilac snowfall. "I think that concludes today's interview."

"I will be here tomorrow."

She turned away from him, looking out of the window to where the van der Woodsen curricle was just drawing level. Her profile was Grecian in the slanting light, and lovelier than Chuck thought entirely beneficial to his state of mind. "I do not doubt that you will."

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

"Get out."

"What?"

"Out. _Now_."

The girl gave a little gasp of pique and glared daggers as she exited the room, and Chuck stared at the canopy of his four-poster bed with sweat still cooling on his chest and eyes unseeing. He was ill; he had to be. Never before in his life had he...and then he remember the shape of Blair's lips as they moved before the lighted window, and he closed his eyes to hold back the image and groaned in shared realisation and frustration.

Never before.

Never like this.

There had never been a time when Chuck had not desired female company and, from the moment he began the steady shift toward maturation, his bed had had as many occupants as King's Cross Station at the height of the season. Blondes, brunettes, redheads and girls more raven-haired than Nyx had christened his silk sheets over and over and over once again, until he began to feel quite sanctified in the never-ending cycle of satisfaction – which was, somehow, never quite satisfying enough. He had pursued quarry before, but never before had it eluded him in quite the same manner Blair consistently achieved. She was learning, but her heart was still cold. Something might be stirring deep within her lily white breast but if it were, Chuck was still unable to see it.

But he wouldn't give up. Giving up would be to tell the world that he could be beaten, and that a woman could unman him.

"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast," he murmured, the poem seeming to hang in the air above like smoke. "And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; and the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, and their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still."

This would be more than a simple bedding. He _had_ to destroy her, obliterate her, make sure that every time another man touched her all she would remember was him. He would make her pant, and he would make her sweat, and then he would steal away like a thief in the night, only to return when she begged him. They would get along well, they two; she would have her cold marriage, her noble suit of armour for a cold bedfellow. They would meet in clandestine corners and in alcoves, never to be seen but only to see – see everything. He would let her see, and know, and feel everything. All he had to teach he would teach to the most deserving, most impossible pupil. She would be his Aristotle and his greatest achievement.

But she would not have him. She would not have him because she knew him, and perhaps that made her worthiest of them all.

His control was slipping.

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

"And you plan on teaching me what, precisely, save how to dress myself for violation or execution?"

"The blindfold acts as a foil for your other senses," Chuck explained, circling around the overstuffed, over-embellished chair in which she sat with the exactitude of motion of a Pythagorean falcon. "Though you may learn more about the world around you through scent and hearing, you must primarily rely on touch to guide yourself around the room."

"And when I trip, my lord?" Blair demanded. "When I fall?"

"My concern is whether or not you can rely entirely on the one sense you profess to loathe, not how many of your bones break."

Blair grimaced. "A true gentleman, of course, ever wishes the lady in his company harm."

"Indeed. Stand up, please."

"No." She folded her arms. "I am staying here."

"I said please, Blair, not if you please. Lady Sparks' ball is mere days away, and that marks the end of the first phase of our little game. Thereafter, you will have to begin carrying yourself as if you are vaguely interested in hearth, home and the pleasures of the flesh, or else you will end up a dried up virgin who is thrown to the gossips for carrion. Oh, and I advise you to subtract your considerably admirable wit and intellect from the equation – no man wants a woman more capable of running his estates than he most probably isn't."

Reluctantly, Blair stood and stretched out her fingertips. They grazed lightly along the edge of a chess board set up ready to play, and she marvelled at the cool touch of the delicately carved pieces on her bare skin. She allowed her hand to travel along the board, feeling the gentle bevel as the squares alternated white and black and still smoother than satin. As she took a tentative step, she passed away from the boundary of the wooden board and table and nearly stumbled.

"You see?" Blair hissed. "Where am I?"

"This is your house; you tell me."

"I can feel the eyes of that abominable portrait staring at me," she grumbled. "My mother commissioned it because Serena was having one done in the same posture."

"She should have chosen one to suit you better."

"Serena suits her better," Blair admitted, taking another step and trying to feel the Turkey rug even through the fine material of her slippers. "She may be lacking in all the grace that only breeding and a stalwart mother can provide, but she is still beautiful and charming and it all comes so very naturally to her. There are times –" She took another step, nearly stumbled once again and felt her breath catch. "There _were_ times when I hated Serena because my mother loved her best. I felt the Prince John to her Lionheart despite my mother being little enough at home to make the distinction very often."

"And yet you would risk yourself to help her," Chuck countered.

"She is like my sister, and therefore I both love and loathe her in equal measure." She paused before taking another step, slippered foot hanging in the air. "I am about to walk directly into something, am I not?"

"Take my hand and I will guide you around it."

"No. Never again."

"You will take my hand or I will take yours and pull you wheresoever I wish: the parlour, the dining room, your bedchamber..."

Blair gritted her teeth and extended one hand. "Would you be so good as to do me the honour of taking my hand, my lord."

Immediately those warm, rough, clever fingers wrapped around hers with a jolt which was becoming as familiar in his presence as her nausea in anyone else's. Blair inhaled deeply, drawing in his musky scent as it mingled with her own light perfume, forming a blend that was darker and deadlier than venom. The realisation of desire slipped through her like a snake and stole her warmth barely a moment later, but there were a few golden seconds when she didn't care that it was Chuck Bass who was holding her hand, and guiding her.

Then something brushed lighter than a feather across her jaw, and Blair shivered.

"Don't do that."

"I am sorry that I must be the one to break this to you, but your future husband may expect a little more than the simple touch of your hand."

"Do not push me," Blair warned. "I feel ready to smash as it is."

The hand in hers quickly withdrew, and Chuck's voice was savage as he said, "Then perhaps you should spend the rest of you life alone, hidden behind seven veils so that no one is able to see your face and realise that you are beautiful, and desire you. Perhaps you should shear off your hair so that you are bald and ugly, and scar your face so that all who look upon it turn away in disgust. Perhaps you should cover yourself from your head to your heels and hope that no one ever has the courage to search for a living, breathing being beneath. The world will end in fire, Blair," he said coldly, and she felt the stirring of his passage away from her sweep across her still blindfolded face. "Not in ice. I think you'll find fire a little more destructive."

Blair raised her hand and pulled the black fabric away from her eyes, her body shaking and racked with little gasps of shock.

Chuck was gone.

* * *

_**Dear****est friends, forgive my errant spiri**_**_t. I've been consumed with uni stuff of late, and what with writing a personal statement and extra reading and open days, I've been busier than season three Chuck and Blair with a pile of stock portfolios and S & M catalogues. I will be out of town all next week at a university conference, so do not be alarmed or begin sharpening your pitchforks if I do not reply to any questions/ threats immediately. It appears that in order to go to get a good degree I must sacrifice what little time I have for the greater good...but anyway. Gracias and besos a:_ ghostbones, Stella296, tvrox12, abelard, Star-crossed92, Infinitywr, HnM skinnys, Twilights-Pain, Erica L, BassKingdom, CBBW3words8letters, Krism, comewhatmay.x, annablake, TriGemini, vivalachair, Krazy4Spike Pixiefanpire, Wewakewewonder, Noirreigne, chuckandblair2456 _and_ READER120. _Chuck is currently busy covering himself in trifle for his next visit to you all.  
In case you didn't know, I made a fan trailer for the delightful Noirreigne's even more delightful 'Violets At Her Feet', because if I swung that way she'd be at the top of my list. Go check out the trailer and then read its inspiration: an utterly heartbreaking eroticism fest complete with blackmailing Chuck. Even the thought gives me tingles..._**


	8. Sept: Blanc

**Sept: Blanc**

"When will she learn?"

"When will she learn what?" Nate asked lazily. His eyes were half-closed in a haze of whisky fumes and blissful contemplation of each of Serena's barely veiled glances at the last ball they had attended. Three dances; that was tantamount to an engagement meaning that, if an engagement were forthcoming, she would surely accept...wouldn't she? He pulled gently on his cigar and pillowed his head on one hand, not entirely cognisant of what his friend was currently saying.

"She has no knowledge of the real world, she seems unaware of its readiness to tear her to shreds. She is arrogant, cold, self-centred, self-obsessed..." Chuck was pacing the room like a caged lion, one hand performing a neatly ordered circuit from hair – raking through – to cravat – tugging on – to pocket – thrust hand into. "And to crown it all, she is not prepared to try!"

"Not prepared to be attracted to you, you mean," Nate replied, examining a trio of gently undulating Serenas which curled in a plume of rising smoke. Then he truly focused on what Chuck was saying, and his eyebrows snapped together. "You seem dangerously close to crossing a line which I warned you not cross. Challenge aids a ready mind and a willing spirit, but Miss Waldorf – Miss Waldorf is terrified, Chuck! She is terrified of the progress she makes because it draws her further away from all that she has ever known." He pulled himself to a seated position and stubbed out the cigar with a kind of dignified savagery. "And for all you claim anger at her actions, she has far more of a right to take offense at yours."

"And why, pray tell."

"You're a bloody coward," Nate replied, and then stood up in one long, military movement that made his blue eyes flash. "At first I wondered why you were lying to me, but know I know the truth; you're lying to yourself."

Chuck's lip curled into a black sneer. "Well then, Sir Nate, champion of all the helpless maidens of London, do tell what _exactly_ I am concealing not only from your esteemed personage, but from even myself."

"You care about her." Nate drew his coat from one arm of the chair he had been lounging in and slung it over his shoulders, still managing even in this rumpled, unaffected state to look like the very paradigm of gentlemanly virtue. "You care about her more than you should, and when her lessons are complete and she refuses to return your feelings then God help her." He eyed his friend dispassionately. "Every attribute you claim she possesses is one you are loathed to see in yourself, and that you and she are so much alike is a fact which only affects _you_, inhibits _you_ and makes you ten times more afraid of her than she could ever be of you."

Chuck's fist smashed into the pianoforte keys in a cataclysm of mangled notes.

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

"You must go!"

"No, I must not. I must not and I won't."

Serena's eyebrows rose elegantly to court her hairline. "A headache, Blair? Truly? When you suffered most dreadfully through Lady Harcourt's ball but _would_ go simply in order to see that your plans for the revelation of her lover came to fruition?"

"I do not care." Blair lay back on her pillows, and in truth her head was pounding. It buzzed over and again with those words: _perhaps you should spend the rest of your life alone...perhaps you should shear off your hair...the world will end in fire, Blair, not in ice._ "I am in pain, Serena, and as my dear friend you should be trying to alleviate that pain in any way possible, not making it worse with your accusations and caterwauling." She winced as the drapes were opened, and squeezed her eyes shut to block out the light.

"If I truly thought that you were indisposed, B, I should never desire to cause you any suffering," Serena said gently, smiling almost in spite of herself as she laid her cool hand upon her friend's equally cool forehead. "But I cannot believe that a simple megrim would be enough to persuade you to miss the event which spells the finale of all your training and all my hopes. I meet Lady Archibald tonight –" And she softly stroked the dark hair which lay tumbled on the pillow, as if Blair were a small child who needed to be soothed back to sleep. "And I need you, both you and –"

"Do not," Blair cut in sharply, though her eyes were still closed and her features now displayed the merest modicum of calm. "Say his name aloud. You will summon him, and then you shall have to trade your soul for something you do not actually want."

"And if I said his name and then said it once again when he had manifested," replied Serena. "Then I should be naming exactly what it is that you want most in the world."

Blair was silent for a good time, and then a single tear slipped from beneath one closed eyelid and rolled down her cheek like a grain of salt, like a crystal. Its passage left a shimmering trail across her skin and a tiny spot of imperfection upon the snowy white pillow, and then she sighed in one great rush.

"I will fight this," she said aloud, and then sighed once more. "It is not a curse I would wish upon my worst enemy, and I shall fight it until my dying breath. Any feelings for him, any emotions that arise when I hear of him – oh, S! – any semblance of those makes me sick. It makes my head ache, and it makes my heart sore, and that is why I cannot go to Lady Sparks' ball and see him tonight!" More tears began to glitter upon the brink of her lashes, and then Blair began to cry in earnest in a way that was not at all delicate and not in the least ladylike. "I cannot have what I want, and I deny myself what I want, and it is _killing_ me!"

And for the first time in ten or more years, Blair stretched out one bare, ungloved, unloved hand, and Serena ignored it. She gathered her friend to her breast as if she were a tiny baby and hugged her tight, stroking her hair and murmuring quietly as Blair sobbed out a lifetime of grief, rage and love into her silk covered shoulder.

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

"Ladies and gentlemen –"

Lady Sparks was a rotund woman with a violently ginger wig, and Blair loathed her on principle. The natural order of things ordained that it should be her husband proposing this toast, her husband who offered up The Honourable Georgina like a tender piece of meat – or, in Blair's opinion, like so much salted offal – to the disgusting piece of humanity that was Carter Baizen. Lord Sparks, however, had come to a bloody end several years earlier when he had unexpectedly and quite by accident slit his own throat while shaving. Any thoughts of either his wife or valet being complicit were quite out of the question, despite the fact that even as the lord was merrily bleeding to death upon his dressing room floor, his wife was emptying the family vault and buying herself a revoltingly gaudy landau which all of Quality would come to regard as a harbinger of death, plague and unseasonable weather.

"Would you please..." Her painted mouth simpered over each word like the skipping of dancing slippers, and nine tenths of those present in the room wished she'd hurry up and get on with it. "Please raise your glasses to my beloved Georgina, the jewel of this house and all others, and her wonderful fiancé Carter who is, without a doubt, the most upstanding individual I have ever met –"

Blair resisted the urge to shriek as a familiar hand closed on her waist, and she was glad that he could not see her eyelids flutter.

"What," Chuck murmured solicitously, his mouth mere inches away from her ear as if all was forgiven and the game was back on now that both combatants had had time to refresh themselves. "Do you think the chances are that Carter used..._immoral_ means to persuade the mother that he should have the daughter? He's a rake, of course, a libertine."

"Like you."

"Do you plan on being cruel tonight, then?"

Blair half-twisted in his grip and, looking over one shoulder, glared with all the considerable force at her disposal. "I am cured, my lord, as you see. You need only let me alone awhile and I can assure you that I will find another gentleman to be not cruel to in the slightest." She shook off his hand, then glided a few steps forward to put two viscounts and a whore masquerading as a lady between them.

Chuck watched her go with no venom, and not a little coolness. It had to be tonight; he had to seduce her tonight. He needed to prove Nate wrong, to prove that this was a simple, recognisable game of cat chases mouse and then devours with no special accoutrements of love and fiery ardour. He sniffed. What was love, in any case? A way for ladies to wound gentlemen when the false coin of lust had played them just as false. He dutifully raised his glass when the repellent specimen of womanhood standing like a hideous figurehead at the top of the grand staircase requested it, but did not drink. Georgina was an old conquest, one that he could have sparred with had he tried – and yet no one compared to Blair. No conquest, no advisor, no hunting partner, no friend.

And now Carter Baizen was approaching her with a ready gleam in his eye.

"Why, Miss Waldorf, you look utterly enchanting."

Blair's bare arms gleamed in the candlelight as she turned to face him, the reflections from the high chandeliers turning her white gown a symphony of jewel bright colours; an aurora borealis glittering on her flesh. A ready smile was already in place upon her lips as she cast a dark, compelling look over her shoulder so that the challenge should be evident. "Good evening, Mr Baizen – how happy you must be tonight. Miss Sparks is by far the loveliest lady of my acquaintance, and now by all accounts she is the luckiest." Her smile waxed engaging, and the long line of her throat glowed golden as she tilted back her head.

"Indeed?" Carter leaned close, and Chuck himself was near enough to see Blair disguise her shudder of discomfort with a most un-Blair-like giggle. "Well, between ourselves, I do believe that _you_ are the loveliest lady of my acquaintance. Shall we dance?"

"Dance?" Blair purred. "I thought you'd never ask."

And almost as the words were out of her mouth, Chuck had scooped up the bride apparent like an orange peel from the gutter and pulled her onto the floor. As Blair and Carter interlocked hands, she caught Chuck's eye and gave a small, triumphant smile. Her lips moved, so slowly and carefully that he was able to understand every word:

_Checkmate, my lord._

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

Carter laughed blearily, his breath so hot and thick with alcohol fumes and his grip so tight on her wrist that it made Blair's head swim. "I knew it!" He crowed, swinging both his and Blair's arms wide for emphasis until it felt almost as if he might pull her arm from its socket in a garden peopled with nothing but plants. "I knew that if it you were with Bass, you couldn't be as much of a frigid bitch as they say." His face loomed above hers, eyes red-rimmed, and his voice dropped to a dangerous whisper. "I knew that if he could get you wet –"

"Please, sir!" Blair knew herself to be on dangerous ground; indeed, it felt as though it were heaving beneath her feet. "I beg you to leave me be! My friends will be looking for me, Lady van der Woodsen –"

"Surely not," Carter slurred, his tone a pale imitation of Chuck's – and damn it, here she was thinking of him again – seductive drawl. "Surely, if they think you're having a little fun –" She struggled against him and let out a low moan of terror. Carter smiled. "That's it," he said, misinterpreting her panic as something else entirely, and his mouth began slowly coming down over hers.

* * *

**_I walked sixteen miles yesterday, and the pain is utterly ridiculous. Some nice long reviews will be better than pills from you darling lovies, so here's last time's round up of lurve: _Infinitywr, Noirreigne, comewhatmay.x, abelard _(your review made me LOL majorly, thank you so much!)_, HnM skinnys, TriGemini, vivalachair, BassKingdom, CBBW3words8letters, Guardian Izz, Hngauthier, chuckandblair2456, tvrox12, Krism, Erica L _and_ SaturnineSunshine. _I wish you all beautiful best friends to sob on and love stories to keep close to your hearts._  
_And as for you, anonymous reviewer _read for fun_? I assume you watch GG, so I think you'll understand what I say when I mark you down as officially irrelevant. You don't like my story? Don't read it.  
A surprise for all:__ h t t p : / / w w w . y o u t u b e . c o m /watch?v=mqpnxr7QZBQ_**


	9. Huit: Doré

**Huit: Doré**

"Mine were the faults –"

His voice came from the darkness like a satirical beacon, and Blair fought the urge to roll her eyes. She had had drawn back her knee for a good upward jerk into the soft, fleshy – and most probably negligible – area of Carter's groin and was more than ready to master her own weakness, and yet here was Faust himself, having exchanged his soul for an encyclopaedic knowledge of the very poetry she herself most admired and an irascible quality to draw her out of herself. One hand was stretched before him, as if to soothe a wild beast, but it was empty of the apple she spitefully considered to belong there. His eyes sought hers, and she was torn between the despicable prospect of looking at Carter or returning the steady, penetrating gaze.

She closed her eyes.

"And mine be their reward," Chuck continued, noting with a mixture of rage and amusement that Blair was trapped in Carter's arms but, at this moment, seemed far more incensed by his presence than by her undeniably precarious position. "You have your debutante, Baizen, now pray return mine. It is hardly gentlemanly to steal everyone else's toys just because your own has its skirts stitched over its head."

"Yours?" Carter's blue eyes were watery, weak and milky. They narrowed at Chuck, whose were focused on Blair, who was silently reciting a round robin of Hail Marys in the hope of divinely absenting herself from the situation. "Agreed to go with me willing enough, didn't you, Miss –"

"Humphrey," Blair snapped, wondering if it would be possible to bathe in holy water upon her return home; there was no doubt, of course, that she would be returning unsullied – although she had little faith or even actual belief in Chuck's chivalrous instincts, she wagered that their wager would factor into the bargain a certain desire for her to be...unsullied. Oh, why was love such a perplexing thing? She already wanted to tear her hair out, and it was not yet ten. "Jennifer Humphrey, Mr Baizen, so lovely to make your acquaintance from this intimate vantage point." Gooseflesh was still rising like a fever on her skin and she was barely clinging to her stomach contents, but the peony bright flush on her cheeks had nothing to do with her current chagrin.

Damn the Bassguard. Damn him to Hell.

Chuck's eyes were tiger's eye golden, a shifting honey that glowed in the dark like twin apricot coloured harvest moons. "I am escorting Miss Humphrey this evening, and her father –"

"Mr Rufus Humphrey, lately of Mayfair," Blair interjected, scowling at the Basstard and trying to telegraph through eyebrow movement alone that she would be heartily pleased if he would care to climb into the fountain and count to ten thousand while she held him underwater. This cruel thought gave her a pang which she swiftly quashed, reminding herself that unconditional love for an indubitable sinner should not be the cause of ending all creative fantasies of his destruction.

"Would like her to rejoin her escort, Lady van der Woodsen." His lips curled as he completed her sentence, and Carter tightened his grip on Blair's arm in response to this apparent mockery.

Blair, who had opened her eyes momentarily, closed them once again before deciding on the only reasonable course of action which would not conclude with one of the men calling the other out in some ridiculously old world, dogs fighting over a single bone style scenario. She let out a soft groan, and let herself go limp in Carter's arms. Her head lolled back, and her bare throat glowed in the moonlight like shimmering swansdown. Her hair slipped from its coiffure, streaming down towards the lightly dewed grass like a ripple of midnight, gleaming with stars as the pins came loose and fell away.

All of this would have been a feasible plan if Blair had not automatically factored in Carter's innate ability to be a gentleman. She had forgotten, in her haste, to disregard him as such, and as the negligible mass of her dead weight fell against him, Carter made a high yelp of disgust and dropped her. She arced towards the ground like a falling statue of a fallen angel, one graceful curve of virgin snow gowned virtue who dropped like felled Juliet towards the ground. Blair's eyes snapped open as she tumbled downward, gazing her blind panic up at the frost scarred moon.

Her head hit the turf, bounced once, then twice, and then she was still; eyes wide open, lips gently parted, her breast rising and falling in even increments and keeping time to the beat of Chuck's racing, boiling heart.

**_#_**

**_#~#~#_**

**_#_**_**  
**_

"What's happened to –"

"An accident, outside –"

"My dear –"

"Blair? Blair!"

Blair stirred groggily at the sound of Serena's frantic voice, but the steady rhythm of whatever or whoever was moving her quickly left the party far behind, and the lights behind her eyelids faded to the barest flicker.

"Miss Waldorf's address, Arthur."

And now there was something smooth and pliant at her back, but cold, and she missed the unexpected warmth of whoever had been carrying her. Partly from indignation and partly from curiosity, Blair sneaked a peek from beneath one drooping eyelid and swiftly closed it again when the face peering down at her came into focus.

"Do not sleep." His hands were as cool as the night air on her cheeks. "Do not sleep, Blair. Stay awake. Stay with me."

"But I'm so tired..."

It was unexpected, that press of his lips to her temple – so soft, so sweet; like sugared almonds against her skin with the delicate touch of velvet. She struggled to open one eye, and then the other, and then she sat up with a force which made her head spin.

He gripped her almost at once, held her to him as she scrabbled for his lapel in the dark. The carriage set off, but the steady rocking only served to lull Blair all the more. There was something...something wrong here, about this picture of him holding her so chastely and so perfectly, as if she were a child he had sworn to protect. As she struggled to remember what it was, it seemed as though perhaps talking, perhaps actively involving herself in the evening's strange happenings might clear her head. There was a world of grey fog separating them, a veil like a wedding veil, but Blair gripped the familiar material beneath her fingers all the harder and said, "Am I going to die?"

"No."

"Did you kill Carter?"

"No."

"Did you quote more Byron at him?"

"I did not. I did, however, beat him to the bloody pulp that such scum deserves to be."

She noticed it as he spoke the words: the shadowy lilac bruising forming a crescent around his left eye; the slight bee-stung puff of his lower lip where a well aimed punch had connected. "I am glad," she remarked, her tone almost as foggy as her mental faculties. "But did you not notice? I did not vomit, or truly faint, or turn white and shake merely because his hand was on my skin. It was fear for myself that made me freeze in his presence, and then you..." She struggled for the word, then half smiled as one presented itself. "_Attempted_ to rescue me. Nevertheless, you must admit that I was at the very least cool headed in the face of almost certain violation."

Chuck's voice was a whisper in the dark, their gentle swaying as they travelled through the London streets giving it a lilt and Blair's heart a rhythm she could not explain. "You were...amazing, out there."

As close as she was, Blair pushed herself just that little closer still. She tilted back her head, and had the satisfaction of a rush of euphoria and a blaze of fire in her belly as his eyes closed and his lips parted to meet hers.

The taste...the taste was almost indescribable. She was giddy, reeling, deliriously drunk as their mouths melded together in a honeycomb world of heat and gentle achings, soft stirrings deeper than her stomach but higher than the highest planes of Heaven. Her hands rose of their own accord, stitching into his hair and pulling his mouth further onto hers as their tongues melted together in a blissful, inexorable caress. There was no bile, no sickness; there was only the molten sweetness stealing through Blair's limbs as she crushed herself to Chuck, feeling him in every inch of her being but still needing more, needing to feel more and all of him and all of her. She gasped for air and felt the darkness shrink around them, the fullness of his silken bottom lip as she pulled it between hers. There could be no indecency and no sin in this, surely – emotions and sentiments like these should be the eleventh commandment! – only the reckless hedonism of every velvet wrapped moment as the kiss turned into kisses, and then went on and on.

"Oh," Blair breathed, and swore she would never eat or drink or leave his arms again. "Oh, I love you."

Chuck froze. One hand clamped on her waist like a vice, and Blair suddenly found herself pushed away, rammed towards the far end of the carriage as he dove for a corner, his handsome face an ecstasy of agony as a wave of ice cold washed over them both. He bowed his head for a moment as Blair breathed hard, and then her perfect reality tore at the seams.

Chuck's head came up, and his eyes were glacial.

"Is that what you think this is?" His tone was that of a razor. "A love affair to end all love affairs, your true heart's breath come to rid you of the disease keeping us apart? Well, let me now make this clear to you, Miss Waldorf – this is a game." The topaz of his eyes had frozen solid, and now the gems were flawed as they glared across the dim expanse of the carriage and expressed nothing toward her but hatred. "It is a game that I play with any and all young, impressionable maidens who cross my path, and it always ends the same way: you and I, whether the colour of your hair is brown or blonde or red or black, in my bed, with my name on your lips, and then out on the street where you belong. I am not capable of being your white knight, and neither do I care to be. You may take me as I am and enjoy me for a short while, or you may renege on our bet and have all of society know that you suffer an ailment that makes you incapable of being anything but heartless."

Blair's lips were numb. "Then I must get myself a husband before the month is out."

"Finally." His lips curled once again, but this time into a sneer. "You and I understand each other, madam."

Her eyes were portals of fire to an inner torment, burning and blazing with no hope of going out. Her heart was all ice, all emptiness; it lay on her skin like hoarfrost. As one hand reached for the door handle, she nodded her head. "If it is what you wish that I sell myself to the highest bidder, then of course I will do as you wish, my lord." Then her hand shot out like a striking snake, and his lip welled blood once again as her stinging slap striped his face scarlet. "But I will lie atop, beneath and by the side of every man in London before I ever lie with you."

"But you kiss like a martyr," he mocked.

The door swung open as she pushed down hard on the handle, and the night air was like another slap. "And you lie like a whore."

Blair's slippers greeted the pavement as if all the weight in the world were resting within their dainty satin soles. She did not sink down upon her bed when she reached it, however, nor soak her pillow with tears. Instead, she drew the red silk Serena favoured from its place in her dressing room and draped it over a chair. She looked at herself in the full length mirror where, in the frosted glass, her smile seemed painted on and her eyes pasted wide open in an expression of darkest mischief to incite desire in even the most reserved of gentleman.

As it should be.

* * *

**_Right...let me just make it clear now that I can't write another chapter if you've shot me, stabbed me, poisoned me or marched me to the guillotine in a truly incomparable dress. Here lies aBasshole, but you must promise not to eviscerate him either - I gave you people hot kissing, God darn it, and the ritualistic slaughter of my (well, my borrowed) characters is not something that women who spend time writing about hot kissing deserve! In case you're up on who I'm reading right now, I have been doing some mutual fangirling of late with the lovely _bethaboo_, and would like to give her my eternal thanks for Punkrockassbitchward, my latest squeeze. Alright, alright, bleeding heart loveage to: _Infinitywr, JustRaeInc, tvrox12, Itconsumesme, comewhatmay.x, BassKingdom _(let's take tea sometime)_, abelard, Star-crossed92, HnM skinnys, SaturnineSunshine, CBBW3words8letters, Krism, TriGemini, Stella296, chuckandblair2456, vivalachair, Noirreigne, annablake, TruC7 _and, of course,_ bethaboo. _I wish you all HOT kisses (anyone else relieved all the sexual frustration combusted? Phew!) with hot men in carriages/cars/buses/boxes/bathtubs/cat carries/gazebos/tents/egg cups/storage lockers. Chuck gets that little bit less evil after some good long reviews...  
_**


	10. Neuf: Gris

**Neuf: Gris**

A week had passed, and London was close to becoming a new Atlantis. The rain came down in hard, unforgiving torrents, gushing into gutters and through grilles and flooding every green space as far as the eye could see. The air one breathed was cold, clammy – even indoors, the pages of books became fat and swollen and droplets ran down the inside of each windowpane, as if the old houses were weeping in tandem with the sky. Everywhere and everything was grey; people bustled from place to place and did not stop to gossip or take tea, simply soldiering on in their heavy gowns and hats and cloaks with undisguised eagerness to be back inside. The fine weather which had thus far blessed the debutante season seemed finally to be at its end.

Chuck stared blearily at the wall with one eye, and tried to decide if he was drunk enough to send for another girl – another to add to the score of _other_ girls who were still not the woman he wanted. He had sent for dozens of brunettes and watched their eyes flash fire and desire at him from beneath imperial, angular brows and cavort for his supposed amusement. Then he had sent them away, thrown his decanter of scotch at the wall and watched the amber liquid bleed into the carpet.

It was Wednesday, he remembered dimly, the moonlit glow of one white shoulder and the palely perfect line of her neck sketching itself into the panelled bookcase before his very eyes. Wednesday meant...something. Something vaguely important.

"Wednesday," Chuck rasped. "And today is Wednesday, is it not?"

He laughed; the hoarse, grating sound of it echoed around the room, insinuating itself atop tables and beneath chairs. The air rang as if fifty Chuck Basses were laughing at their own folly, and all were one in their desperation. One hand pressed down hard on the chaise arm and he levered himself up, staggering as his head swam and stars burst in a cataclysm before his bloodshot eyes. "Wednesday," he repeated, shambling towards the double doors which, in the summer, would open onto his mother's cherished rose garden. It took several attempts for his fingers to turn the key and, better yet, to open the doors themselves.

Chuck stumbled out into the pouring rain and within moments his hair was slick to his head. The exquisite dove grey silk of his waistcoat and charcoal of his cravat became damp black rags, fit for nothing but the fire. His white shirt clung to his skin, forming dark ridges like scars as each raindrop hit. He sat down hard on the step.

"Wednesday," said the Marquis of Winchester, and waited for the rain to shock him into sobriety.

**_#_**

_**#~#~#**_

_**#  
**_

Lillian van der Woodsen sighed, pressing her fingertips to her temples and attempting to will her megrim away. It had been on the tip of her tongue to tell Serena to go without her, to give this night a miss; but when she had seen her daughter wearing the golden brocade gown Lady Archibald had commissioned to celebrate her son's engagement, Lily could do nothing but lay down her book and rise to dress herself. It was hardly fair, she thought, as the maid laced her into the layers of stays which were still fashionable although just as uncomfortable as ever. Blair had put so much work into ensuring a good match for Serena, and to be fainting so unexpectedly in the garden when all her work came to fruition...but then, Lily doubted that the fainting had been so very unexpected.

It had been errant of her, perhaps, to encourage Serena's matchmaking between the girl she considered near enough a daughter and the roguish Charles Bass – but then, she had known him as a child, and both their mothers besides. Eleanor had always been proud, always cold and condescending, but Elizabeth...Lily missed her so, missed the warmth and gaiety of her presence which the father had stripped from the son. Serena had been nearer to his age than the winter born Blair, but in those early, lazy days of babyhood when the women had precious little to do but throw them together and coo at the noises they made, there was little harm in allowing the three children to entertain one another while their mothers ate delicately, took long walks and did everything in their power to regain their figures.

Eleanor, unsurprisingly, had been first.

"Mama?" The serene blonde head came around the door, followed by its shimmering bodily counterpart, each spark of light as the rich fabric flashed still not quite as bright as the unceasing smile on Serena's lips; her contemplations of the future were now her constant companions, and they never ceased to please her. "Are you ready?"

Lily turned her head and added a dab more powder to smooth out the line of her neck. "Yes. Are we going to the Waldorfs first? You know that I never enjoy the idea of Blair going anywhere without an escort."

Serena's fair brow wrinkled. "I suggested it to her yesterday evening, and all I gained in response was a smile which was quite un-Blair-like and a promise to meet us there. Mama –" Her blue eyes were as innocent and imploring as they had been all those years ago. "Do you know what passed in the garden between Chuck Bass and Blair? At first she refused to speak to anyone, and now that she is speaking she will neither speak of it nor him – they used to spend so much time in each other's company, and now it appears she has cut him completely."

"Indeed," said Lily enigmatically, and would say no more.

**_#_**

_**#~#~#**_

_**#  
**_

Lord Marcus Beaton was a fop, a dandy, and the most monotonous person Blair had ever had the misfortune to spend time with. As he laid his cold fish fingers on her arm, Blair swore she saw scales flash, and could not restrain a shudder. The Lord even looked liked a fish, she observed, in his long coat of shiny black with an ill-cut silver waistcoat and – she almost laughed – green and blue tartan trousers which did nothing to conceal his gangly calves. He was a beanpole, but he was titled and attractive enough to suit her ends. Additionally, he was ridiculously flattered that she, the icy Miss Waldorf, should lavish so much attention on him; indeed, he almost seemed to froth at the mouth with the pleasure of it.

"Miss Waldorf," said The Lord. "May I perhaps compliment you on your –"

Blair smiled politely. "That's lovely, my lord, but shall we go in?"

"Miss Waldorf, I –"

"Exquisite. Lead on, my lord."

There was little enough stir in the crowd as they entered, many people having broken taboo and crossed the room simply to admire the enormous ring encrusting Serena's finger; the Vanderbilt diamond, Blair had been ecstatically informed, passed down from Nate's mother's side of the family. Although at the time her temper had not yet cooled and Dorota had not yet finished tidying the shattered wreck of her dressing room, Blair could now allow herself a moment of smugness at her achievement. Serena would be a countess, and she –

"Blair."

She had foregone balls for a week in an attempt to avoid him, and now the moment had come. Gritting her teeth, she closed her fingers over the Lord's damp flipper and turned, pinning a smile on her face that flashed like the white of her gown.

"My lord," she greeted him, the smile full and empty of warmth like a white candle burning in a coal mine. Her gaze swept him once from head to toe, and she noted with interest that other than the obligatory black coat and pair of unmentionables, his shirt, cravat and waistcoat were all a dazzling shade of white – as if he'd dressed to match her once more. Her tongue became thick behind the smile and she could feel all the blood in her body rushing to her neck, suffusing it scarlet like blood on fresh snow.

His teeth were in a grim line to match hers. "A word, if you please?"

"But my lord, I am here with an escort." She squeezed the flipper delicately and tried to refrain from a wince as the fish gulped in surprised satisfaction. "Lord Charles Bass, Marquis of Winchester, Lord Marcus Beaton, the Viscount Shrewsbury."

"Shrewsbury," Chuck repeated.

"Shrewsbury," Blair echoed.

"Then I'm sure Lord _Shrewsbury_ will not mind if I borrow you for a few moments."

"Oh, but I would, for I have promised him the first dance."

"Lord Beaton." Chuck tried his best to be engaging, and merely appeared as if he were about to throttle The Lord's fraternal halibut. "Miss Waldorf has neglected to inform you that she promised me this precise dance at the beginning of the season, and as such I am afraid that I must remove her from your presence."

The fish attempted to burble a reply.

"I am much beholden to you," the angler said smoothly. His fingers clamped on Blair's arm like a claw, and they both smiled as brightly as possible as he half pushed, half dragged her across the room and into a curtained alcove. Once inside and within the shelter of the velvet, Blair snarled like a wildcat and twisted out of his grip, breathing hard with two wild spots of colour high in her cheeks.

"You have no right to handle me so! We are finished!"

Chuck caught her wrists and held them together for fear she would scratch him, and then brought his face close to hers. "Oh, dear lady, we are in no way finished. Your wonderful codfish of a lord is clearly just a toy you bought to try and wound me, and you devalue yourself with such tricks."

"A fish on ice," Blair spat. "Is better than a virgin and a libertine, for I have no doubt now that my feelings for you were mistaken and that I did not know myself when I declared them. Do not mistake me, my lord, I am honouring our wager and exploring the possibility of a husband who necessitates a wife to bear his children and does not expect me to be his plaything or breathe down the back of my neck for fear of losing me to a real gentleman! Do not smirk at me!"

But smirk her companion did. "And yet it is not the gentleman in me that you desire, is it? How do you feel now, Blair – pulse racing, tongue tied, every inch of your skin aflame? It is not the longing for home and hearth and family that prompts you so, and you should see by now that we are the same." He pressed his advantage so that their lips were a hair's breadth apart and she could feel every word like a white hot dart of wickedness upon the tender flesh. "You should stop trying to fight it. Let me in, Blair." He brought her still restrained hands down between them, letting his fingers press against the forbidden and deliciously delicate skin of her clavicle and décolleté as the tips of hers grazed his shirtfront. "Let me win."

Blair closed her eyes, and she inhaled once to clear her head and once more to clear it of the pervasive scent of the air between them, which was somehow warmth made tangible. "I have a heart of glass, and it is broken; you cannot fix a broken heart with bricks and mortar. But you –" She shook her head. "You and every damned creature like you possess a heart of iron which only softens in the fires of lust and holds no capacity for true feeling or redemption."

"Then why not martyr yourself to my cause?"

She forced herself to look at him – to drink him in like the vapours above champagne. "Why do you not wish me to be with him?"

"Because you don't want to."

"That is not enough."

"Because I don't want you to."

"That is still not enough!" Tears gathered along the line of her lashes, bobbing like tumbling stars. "Are you heartless as well as selfish? Are you cruel to crown it all?"

"What –" His mouth was dry, and the words would not come. "What else is there?"

"The reason," Blair whispered. "The real reason I should stay here, just as I am, behind this curtain, with you." Her fingers curled with deliberate slowness, tracing the blue veins which coursed along the inner line of his wrist. "Three words. Eight letters. Say it...and I'm yours."

Her face was shining like a beacon, so full of hope; he wanted to vomit. His skin felt as if it were rippling, as if she were insinuating herself beneath it, as if Chuck Bass were no longer Chuck Bass but some sick transmutation of another person's will. His were never more than one night love affairs where love was an empty word which rang in his ears and which he never said back. Chuck Bass did not love, could not love, perhaps even should not love; no. Love was shallower than even he, more sadistic than even he, darker and more terrifying and more crippling than even the deep shadows in the hidden corners of his mind.

Blair's face fell, and she yanked back her hands from him as if he might scald them. "That," she said, sweeping aside the curtain with one elegantly gloved hand. "Is all I needed to hear."

* * *

**_Feel like a natter? I'm on Twitter at_**_ **h t t p : / / t w i t t e r . c o m /thevlv**_

_**I'm sorry I've been AWOL for such a long time, but as most of you know I was busy reconnoitering (i.e. sobbing into Chuck's hair) - only kidding. On reflection, it's fair to say that I was more than a little immature, but my ego is rather paper thin (there's something about being called 'ginger' from a young age), so just ignore me. In any case, this chapter was just a blast to write. It's had several incarnations, but this is the one I enjoy best - in case you're interested, Blair's declaration about the heart of a rogue like Chuck is adapted from the words of Lady Caroline Lamb, the mistress of Lord Byron (seeing a pattern, anyone?).**_

_**Thank you and besos to you all:**_** bethaboo, Infinitywr, Star-crossed92**_**,**_** TriGemini, vivalachair, Krazy4Spike _(have I mentioned that I am too?)_****, Just RaeInc, abelard, ghostbones, abananasurplus****, Stella296****, BassKingdom, HnM skinnys, Comtess d'Armagnac, Michaellllla, TruC7, observations,**** hntrb****2294, comewhatmay.x, tvrox12, annablake, SaturnineSunshine, CBBW3words8letters, chichicutie _and_****Pres. Narnia Clearwater-Reid**_** (what an awful lot of fandoms - I know I shouldn't be half as creative as you, mine would probably be Hell Yeah Chair Southern Vampires In Anatomy Diaries With A Dash Of Glee). May you all enjoy whatever weather you're having, although it's as bleak as Chair's London here right now. Chuck will be round when he's finished wringing tears and contact lenses out of his hair with peonies for you all.**_


	11. Dix: Argent

**Dix: Argent**

The single candle flame guttered; the pen nib scratched across the paper in ever more desperate circles. Its rasp was the only sound in the room as row upon row of faceless, exquisitely bound books looked down, disapproving of such frivolity within their sanctum. Bare golden arms with fingers stained black from strain stretched up toward the painted ceiling, fingertips pushing, pushing towards an unseen God. As their possessor looked back down to scatter sand over the wet ink, she could but hope that He would answer her prayers.

She could but hope for a miracle.

"In my experience, it does not do well to interfere with affairs of the heart."

"If the course of true love will not run in my favour, I have no choice."

_**~#~**_

_Lady Lillian van der Woodsen humbly requests the pleasure of_

_The Honourable Miss Blair Waldorf_

_Lord Charles Bass, Marquis of Winchester_

_Lord Marcus Beaton, Viscount Shrewsbury_

_at_

_A small tea party to be given at the family residence_

_on_

_Friday the twenty-sixth_

_**~#~**_

Blair tried to restrain her mutinous expression to a mere quirk of the lips, instead smoothing down the skirt of her dove grey gown before resuming both her teacup and her part in the conversation. All summoned had, naturally, replied in the affirmative to the invitation, and as such fallen directly into Serena's beastly trap. For the life of her, Blair could not comprehend why her friend would choose to afflict her in such a way; it appeared that affianced women lost their minds as well as their rights to keep their ring fingers unburdened when they became glassy eyed – as she knew without a doubt Serena had, for even the saccharine novels young ladies of the ton so favoured and Blair so disdained were enough to make her squeeze out a few tears – and sobbed out some sibilant sound which in no way resembled a 'yes'. Nevertheless, she was here now, and faced with the indignity of having to take tea with a person whose lifestyle made the most decadent days of the Roman Empire seem comparable to this supposedly innocent tea party.

"Lord Marcus," said Lily pleasantly, and the fish turned his head away from silent contemplation of a vase of flowers on the sideboard and widened his watery blue eyes to indicate sentience. "I do not believe I have yet had the pleasure of meeting your lady mother. Lord Beaton, of course, I knew in my youth –" She let out a light, insincere laugh which made Blair's eyebrows itch with the desire to become better acquainted with her hairline. "But not the duchess. How does she do?"

"My stepmother," replied The Lord, regarding Lily with so much consternation that it seemed as though, in his own mind, she had asked him to recite from the encyclopaedia rather than in regards to a simple matter of health. "Is very well, thank you." He blinked wetly. "She prefers to reside at our country estate, where the air is cleaner. She is of a...that is to say...in rather a delicate condition."

"How lovely!" Serena exclaimed, and then winced as Blair's fingernails dug deeply into her arm beneath the concealment of one gauzy sleeve.

"Indeed."

Blair shut her eyes and bit her tongue as the resonant drawl of those two syllables conveyed everything – arrogance, narcissism, disdain, amusement, boredom, frustrated pleasure – to her, and yet seemed nothing more than a cool observation to all others present. When she resumed her austere gaze upon the room at large, however, he was not looking at her; instead, his eyes were focused upon Lord Marcus with the kind of anticipation usually seen in the eyes of a snake before it strikes the life from a helpless rabbit. Blair felt the fine hairs on the back of her neck begin to rise as she sensed the blow even before it was ready to fall, and braced herself for it.

"Lord Shrewsbury," Chuck began, in a tone which was innocent enough to convey none of his usual cynicism and therefore verging on seraphic for him personally. "You and our dear Miss Waldorf –" This lugubriously, with a look in Blair's direction which she deflected with an expression of stone. "Have had an undeniably short acquaintance, and it was just occurring to me that, as such, she may not have had a chance to share her favourite works of literature with you. _The Bride of Lammermoor_, naturally, by Sir Walter Scott, Mr Dickens' _Bleak House_ and...what was it?" The look in between them intensified in strength and, on one side, antipathy. "Ah, yes. _Persuasion_. Such a tragic tale at the outset, with poor Anne already forced out of the arms of her lover by the thoughts and wishes of others."

_But you do not love me_, Blair accused him silently. _And Captain Wentworth loved Anne utterly for herself_,_ even though he tortured her publicly with words on inconstancy. You love no one so much as yourself._

"And yet," she said aloud, in a guileless tone which was meant to express as much to the company. "They are reunited when the bonds of love between them prove too strong to break, even over the course of so many years. He was her white knight, her true heart's breath –" His dark golden eyes narrowed as she quoted his words of that night in the carriage back at him. Blair had the instincts of a killer, gifted to her by a mother who believed that the only true joy in life was the decimation of others. "Their passion for one another was no game, and no other maiden would have suited the good captain save the one whom he loved."

Chuck gave one curt nod as he acknowledged the hit and then stood, abrupt and impolite in the centre of one of the most elegant drawing rooms in London. "Lady van der Woodsen, if you would excuse me." He made a stiff bow in Lily's direction and another in Serena's before stalking from the room with his coat tails following on like a sleek black ghost behind him. Almost immediately, Blair rose with only a little more decorum, and swept their hostess one of her finest.

"Lady van der Woodsen, pray excuse me also."

"A headache," Lily supplied helpfully. "Take a turn in the garden my dear, before you rejoin us."

Blair shot her friend's mother a veiled smile at the tacitly conveyed information, then made sure her spine was ramrod straight and her steps measured as she turned towards the door of the drawing room, made a quiet and dignified exit and then, once out of view of those still within, dropped any semblance of calm still remaining, picked up her skirts and ran down the polished hall to the door which she knew would open onto the garden. Her heart was suddenly racing, and she knew not why; or more, she did know, but the fear which accompanied that frantic heartbeat was too great to allow her to express it. A maid started in alarm as Blair passed, then eyed her askance as she wrenched open the door by its elegant golden handle, rushing out into a rain and wind ravaged garden where the late afternoon sun hung low and blood red in a leaden sky. Almost instantly, she was drenched. Shaking tendrils of hair out of her eyes and shivering with a chill which seemed to penetrate to her bones, she looked around for Chuck.

He was standing beneath a tree – but of course he was. She was only surprised he was not beating his head against the trunk like Heathcliff and moaning 'Blair' at regular intervals. This thought, however was scotched by another realisation which laced the drumming in her breast with another, deeper poison: that was another love story, and hers...hers was not.

He was speaking even as she approached, the pins in her hair loosened by the wet and beginning to tumble into the sodden grass, though his eyes were fixed upon the tree bark as though it might afford him some answers. "Your lord...do you truly feel the same for him as Anne did for Wentworth? As Serena does for Nate?"

Blair insinuated herself in the space between tree and Chuck, and despite the proximity could feel nothing but the deepest cold running through her veins. When he looked at her, he looked with eyes that were not hard and frozen but soft, desolate; eyes which held the look of a lonely child, abandoned by its peers, and the tears rose to Blair's own eyes as she looked back into them. He was an empty husk, standing there before her, dark hair plastered flat to his skull in the rain. This sodden, heart rending scene was set for some glorious declaration of love and healing, Blair observed, before her mind returned automatically to their wager and the consequences if she were to forget herself enough to lose.

"I...I do."

The words fell like a hammer blow in the otherwise silent garden, and Chuck looked back at her as if it were he who had been struck. He closed his eyes for a moment, as if in too much pain to bear the grey twilight of the deluge which seemed ripe to drown them. Then, as gently as a cat chastising the most recalcitrant of its kittens, his fingers closed so softly, so lightly around her throat. They were still for a moment, as Blair too closed her eyes and relished the sensation of his cool touch on her flesh. She recognised the message in the caress; his words only affirmed it.

"Goodbye, Blair."

And yet it was as if he had gripped her with the hand of a monster and squeezed the breath from her body. The damp grass soaked Blair's skirts as her knees gave out beneath her, dropping into a deep genuflection as his hand fell away from her throat. He had won, it was beyond protestation – when she was his to command in every way, falling at his feet like a concubine whose only wish to please her master even if it cost her life and her dignity to do so. His steps were silent as they took him away from her, and for that she was grateful. She was grateful for the small mercy of not having to hear the end begin over, and over, and over again, as she was sure it would every empty night for the rest of her life.

When Blair re-entered the drawing room, her face was a smooth mask of composure. Serena followed behind, surreptitiously tucking the remainder of the pins she had saved from the garden mulch into the reticule at her waist. The grey gown Blair was now wearing had been lent, and was too long in the skirt and in the sleeves and of a different style to the one she had come to tea wearing, but it was enough to fool The Lord. He gulped as they came in.

"My lord Marcus," Blair said dully. "I find myself tired. Would you perhaps accompany me home once more?"

All in the room knew what his wet amorous looks towards the darkly handsome young woman meant, and all knew what question would be asked and answered – in the affirmative – in the dark closeness of the carriage. Lily watched the blank face of her almost ward, and her heart went out to the wreck that Eleanor's indifference, Serena's vanity and Chuck's hapless and equally helpless cruelty had created. She was looking at a priceless jewel, she knew, into the heart of a diamond of incalculable worth which had been cast out from its setting and now lay in the mud, waiting to be picked up by any adventurer simply in the hope of being useful if it could not shine.

She only wondered how long it would take for misery and self loathing to turn Blair to dross.

* * *

**_Sorry for the long wait, loves, and thank you for your patience. My dissertation is now finished (squee!) and will hopefully be judged fit for purpose when I showcase it in a few weeks. I'm now back at school and in my final year, so life will hopefully run pretty much linearly from now on. Now, the usual felicitations, gratitude, love and worship goes to: _BiteMeBass, violetka, Star-crossed92, BassKingdom, Seriouslyhappy, JustRaeInc, Maudie, LovelyAmanda, comewhatmay.x, Infinitywr, Itconsumesme, SaturnineSunshine, TriGemini, abelard, chuckandblair2456, Krazy4Spike, CBBW3words8letters, vivalachair, annablake, tvrox12, Guardian Izz _(sorry, more 'I...I'ing in this chapter ;-))_, animeLCgrl, odyjha, niinjjakiitten _and_ RedheadObsession_. I wish everyone a fantastic new academic year, and special thanks goes to those who fought through wind and rain to doubly review me, even anonymously. Each and every person who reads this story deserves a Chuck in the hand, one in the bush, and one in a soaking wet shirt._**


	12. Onze: Rouge

**Onze: Rouge**

Blair was beautiful – she knew it, dully, somewhere in the back of her mind where life rarely gave her occasion to tread. The crimson silk of her evening gown sighed with even the tiniest of movements, and the loops and teardrops and intricately cut fleur-de-lis around her neck hung heavy and perfect, each diamond disporting a thousand facets laced with candlelight. She was warm, almost overly so in the heavy dress; and yet she felt more as though she had just risen from a fever, and was feeling the unnatural chill of a new day upon her skin. She was still alive – this she knew from the emptiness which accompanied her every step, either to embrace destiny or refute it – but barely breathing, a wax doll with white skin and prettily painted red lips and dark, luminous eyes which were really just so much glass.

And yet all had seemed to come precisely at the right time. Her hand had been cold as he took it in his own clammy flipper and handed her up into the barouche with a sense of great solemnity, all blood rushing to who knew where in her body, for each organ and limb and even her very heart felt chilled. He was handsome, she admitted to herself as the words finally began to spill from his lips after half an eternity of silence on his part and an ecstasy of torment on hers, and yet...and yet he was not. Could not be.

Could never be.

But in part, those long anticipated words stemmed the bleeding. The insincere terms and empty flattery washed over her like unbroken waves, with no impact other than the little balm they could add to her wound. It had been dark in the carriage, which was perhaps easier: he could better presume that the hot tears on Blair's cheek when he pressed his lips to it were born of joy, and not from bitterest sorrow. She, for her own part, bit down on her lower lip until it bled.

And now here they were. The reflection in the mirror had looked every bit the future Lady Beaton, Viscountess Shrewsbury, which meant that at the very least her mother would be proud. After all, Blair thought, putting back Eleanor's shoulders and straightening Eleanor's spine – for she had always believed that the softer, more susceptible parts of herself were the product of her dear father – she was marrying a man she did not love but who could provide title, position, wealth and security; there were far worse things in Heaven and Earth. _The Lord giveth_, Blair reflected drily, one fingertip tracing an elegant curlicue of diamonds and feeling their hard certainty on her skin like a sudden shock. _And the Lord taketh away._ In this case there was certainly a lord giving and another taking himself away, and she could not be sure which of the two cut her more deeply.

"Is it too much?"

Blair started. "Beg pardon?" So absorbed had she been in her silent, sombre reverie that she had not heard the door open, and now Marcus stood behind her with his face all too visible in the looking glass. It was strange, when he and she should have looked so well together – tall and petite, fair and dark – that the reflection should seem as disjointed as if the mirror itself were cracked.

"The ball," he clarified. "Is it too much? I am aware that we have been little enough in each other's company, that we have not had time to...that is to say, we have not...we have not quite been in the position to –"

"To what?"

"Why –" His eyebrows rose, and Blair felt a distinct feeling of unease and a desire for him to draw further away begin to seep through her veins like mercury. "To declare our expectations of the marriage, of course. Of each other. Of the years to come."

"I would have thought," was the reply, with not a little frost. "That those lines were drawn clearly when I agreed to be your wife, my lord, or do you suspect me of somehow playing you false?" When he would have made to interrupt, she continued. "Your good name, my lord, is all desire of you, as a good wife should; otherwise, you may do as you please: with myself, with others if you so choose." She observed with an almost detachment how quickly the colour rose to his cheeks, and schooled herself in austerity though the words were quite as repugnant to her as they seemed attractive for him. Suddenly, though, and shockingly – for it was unlike The Lord in every way possible – his face hardened, and his blue eyes became keen and resentful.

"But I will never countenance you taking a lover."

Blair laughed; more, she threw back her head and laughed. "Forgive me, my lord, but who precisely would you consider me desirous of taking as a lover?"

"My lord Bass, of course."

The laughter ceased abruptly, but a winning smile was promptly forced into its place as if to smooth over the join. "Chuck Bass? My lord, I fear your imagination –"

"He is in love with you," Marcus interrupted. "And I will not have it."

It took all of Blair's willpower not to scream. Why, the only reason she was even considering marriage to a dullard like The Lord was because she had been deceived, like so many girls before her, into believing that the Devil's own had a shred of decency or even a scrap of love in his heart to give and yet here the dolt was, repeating the same lie Blair had told herself over and over until it had seemed as though it were possible, and she was human enough and witty enough and beautiful and personable enough to be loved in return. She laughed again, and this time it was a brittle sound, like breaking glass.

"My lord Bass," she said. "And love are two distinct offices which never meet."

"Nevertheless," The Lord persisted. "He loves you quite as well as you love him, my dear Miss Waldorf." A smug smile which seemed at odds on The Lord's vapid, handsome face played around the edges of his mouth, curling it upwards. "And yet I am indeed glad that you have chosen me, and not passed down the path of degradation and sin like so many others."

"Thank Heavens for small mercies," Blair replied, in a tone thick with sarcasm. "May we go down now, my lord, or is there yet more you wish to accuse me of?"

In an instant, Marcus' face returned to the timid, bumbling fish she had grown accustomed to. "I meant not to accuse or chastise you, Miss Waldorf, but to make my intentions clear."

"And now they are like crystal." Blair smiled beatifically, for it was better to be a smiling fool at her own ball than a sourpuss who could be dropped in the gutter like an orange rind, where she was soundly assured Chuck Bass would not be waiting to pick her up, whatever Marcus' weak brained sensibilities had encouraged him to believe. "Shall we go down, my lord? I am so anxious for you to make the acquaintance of my friends."

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

The Devil did indeed seem to make work for idle hands, and idle tongues likewise. Chuck had observed at least three ladies gossiping over the question of the bride-to-be's chastity and casting veiled glances at him all the while; this, he found infinitely amusing. Here were all who censured Blair ready to fuck him with no questions asked, and there he stood with no capability in the field whatsoever. The little whore had fried him, both physically and mentally, and now he was reduced to drowning his sorrows in cheap champagne and paying off the girls who had left him so unsatisfied when there was no debt to be paid. God, how he hated her, and how he hated himself for watching the way she moved down the staircase with her hand on the arm of a man who, in Chuck's opinion, hadn't a pot to piss in. He drained his glass, then winked at Lady Penelope Shafai who at first feigned shock, and then gravitated to his side like a magnet.

"You've rushed up from the sewer early this evening, my lady." She smirked, and he continued. "My deepest condolences on the loss of his lordship."

Penelope lowered her eyes modestly, but the black of the irises seemed to flicker in the candlelight with a muted red gleam like the gloss on a dark cherry. After an acceptable interlude, a catlike smile rose to greet his. "A terrible accident, of course – though for the life of me, why my dear Barnabas' own gun should misfire and blow his brains out all over my nice new riding habit is beyond me."

"Snake," he accused.

"Flatterer," she replied. "And yet it seems that you have more news to share than I." She swept one hand gracefully towards the figure just now reaching the bottom of the stairs whose hand was already outstretched to greet her guests. "Nothing short of a picture, is she not?"

Chuck glared sourly in Blair's direction. "And what makes you think I have any interests whatsoever in that area?"

"Chuck." Penelope's tone was frank, and the look on her face was franker. "In our time together, I have sent you blondes, redheads, and even the black haired ones we ship from overseas. All you have approved of, and yet now you only call on my services for brunettes: brown eyed, slender, and unsmiling. Since when has a man of the world like yourself restrained his tastes in order the hope of life imitating art?" She placed a slim fingered hand on his arm, and he shook it off with a snort of derision.

"That description could apply to any number of ladies in London."

Penelope sighed. "If you are so insistent on cowardice, then who am I to gainsay you? However, I am sure you did not summon me to your side simply to exchange pleasantries."

"Lady Baizen." His tone was brusque. "As she and I are not 'officially' acquainted, you must bring her to me for a formal introduction."

"And what am I to say you want of her?"

"She knows."

Georgina Baizen was sequestered in one corner of the ballroom with several adoring young sycophants who were certainly not her boorish husband, and for that Chuck was glad. It would not do to cause a scene at Blair's ball, not if it would mean all his best laid plans going awry and the acidic denunciation of her eyes on his back. Penelope went away with a swift flicker of her fan like the businesswoman she was, and the ton parted like the Red Sea before the advancing figure of its merriest of widows. Georgina nodded after a few swift words and then they two returned to his side, a little slower this time, the cause of which was evident.

"Is it mine?" Chuck asked brusquely, eyeing the soft swell of Georgina's belly beneath the aquamarine silk of her gown.

"No."

"And I may also safely assume that it is not Carter's either?"

Georgina's green eyes took on a dreamy set, and she let out a soft purr of contentment. "There was a lovely shop boy at Brown's when I was being fitted for my trousseau...so free with his hands when helping the customers..."

"Enough." Penelope tossed back a waterfall of improperly loose dark hair and glowered. "When we want to know how much of the filth of London stems from between your legs, we will ask."

"He did."

"Go," Chuck said shortly to Penelope, who did and looked grateful for it. "As for you, _ma petite Parisienne_ – and I refer to you as such not because of any charm or wit on your part, but simply because you have quite as many customers as any lady in that fair city – I have a task for you."

"Payment."

He rolled his eyes. "Pear cut emerald and amethyst drop earrings, solid gold setting, Bond Street."

Georgina chewed thoughtfully on her lip for a brief moment, then nodded. "Throw in a bracelet or two and you have a deal." She took one of his hands in hers, then manipulated the thumb and forefinger into a circle around one wrist. "This size. It is perhaps not as delicate as The Honourable Miss Blair's, but it will have to do for you for the moment. Now –" She laid one hand over her belly. "How can I help you, my lord?"

"The blushing groom." Chuck eyed Marcus with palpable distaste. "I want dates, addresses, marriage certificates, deeds and just about anything else you can lay your grubby little hands on. I want to know why the father is never in town and how his mother died, and I want everything possible about the mysterious and pregnant stepmother. If you can't find any damning evidence to accuse him of this crime or the other, then I want you to take yourself to Cheapside, find Andrew Tyler and fabricate me some." The elegant line of his jaw was hard with tension, and two pairs of eyes grew narrow and speculative as Blair lightly pressed her lips to Lord Marcus' cheek. "This marriage is not going ahead," Chuck said grimly. "And if it takes her tumbling down with her farce of her fiancé to end it, then so be it."

The cast of the candlelight gave Georgina's pale skin a milky set as she examined Blair critically. "And yet they say that no amount of money will buy happiness or love."

"Everyone," came the ominous reply. "Has a price."

* * *

**_Well, We Shall Thunder won the poll (check out my profile if you don't know what I'm on about). A trailer is currently in progress. And weirdly, I wrote this chapter before watching last night's GG, and yet Blair is wearing a red dress with a diamond necklace bought for her by a man who isn't Chuck - spooky. Also, there's a new vignette about the episode in 'And Tear Us Apart Again'. If you don't read it, give it a go: bite-sized nuggets of Chair goodness that can be consumed alone or as a whole (damn, now I really want some cereal).  
_**

**_You are all my sunshines, my only sunshines, because you make me happy when skies are grey and I realise that even Blair's cardigans retail at four thousand dollars, so this chapter's round of hugs, kisses, pats on the back, nicely wrapped scarves and bottles of champagne go to: _Stella296, SaturnineSunshine, Krazy4Spike _(your review was hilarious, for Heaven's sake keep them coming)_, CBBW3words8letters, TriGemini, abelard, chuckandblair2456, Itconsumesme, annablake _(she loves me and leaves me, and I love her)_, Bassdorf, BassKingdom, vivalachair, tvrox12 _and_ ilovecujo1993 _(your mum reads me? I salute her!)_._ I wish you all dramatic meetings in Paris and Givenchy couture, paid for by a prince.  
_**

**_One last note: lurkers, give me a break! I KNOW you're there because you put me on alert or favourite, but for the love of Blair's heart shaped pin, throw me a friggin' bone here! I don't care if you want to tell that I smell like three day old laundry, just don't be silent - how will I ever get Chuck naked without your encouragement?  
_**


	13. Douze: Marron

**Douze: Marron**

Women of Quality did not walk the streets of Whitechapel unescorted – if at all – and Penelope fought the desire to draw back her skirts from the mud and rush to find a carriage. She, however, intended to carry out her duty, and any woman in possession of as much sense as she would have seen Georgina Baizen for what she was: a liability. Thus, Penelope placed her feet carefully, her mind stubbornly focused on the task at hand in a manner less like the lady she had been born and more like the wealthy procurer she had become. Dealing in human flesh did not bother her, not when the only article she had to dirty her fingers with was the money; after all, money had that splendid power of making all untoward problems go away...except perhaps in this case. In this case, she thought grimly as a particularly foul puddle slopped onto the toe of one of her boots, here was a man who knew precisely what he wanted, and was trying his best to get at it in the way he acquired everything else in his world. But to Penelope's well practised eyes, Miss Waldorf was not the kind of creature who could be bought, not the sort of woman who could be tied – in the end, she was prepared to marry a man she did not love in order to spite the one she did – and had not the kind of character to be taken in by deception.

All or nothing, then.

The approaching figure was hooded, the cloak about its shoulders a drab shade of brown which blended in with the alley's soiled walls. It was a poor attempt at a disguise; Georgina's green eyes gleamed out, cold and triumphant and the only spot of colour in this bleak setting.

"Well?" Penelope asked shortly, when the other woman was but a few feet away. "I assume there is nothing condemning to be had if you have been to visit Tyler."

"On the contrary: what I have will go down in history." A cat-with-the-cream smile curled her lips. "Perhaps my most interesting mission yet, when the outcome is so very Machiavellian. Fear not, my lady, there will be no doubt of her ending it after this."

"The dossier?"

A thick sheaf of papers passed from manicured hand to manicured hand, and one cast her eyes curiously over the top page as the other inspected her cloak hem with scant interest. "This has to be foolproof, you know, absolutely watertight. If it is, your payment should be ready for you by the end of tomorrow." Their gazes met, one warning and one nonchalant. "Is it watertight?"

"No woman could bear it."

"Excepting yourself," Penelope replied cattily, and then turned on her heel – still careful to avoid the muck – and began to make her dainty way towards the public street, a cab, and then home for a particularly satisfying cream tea with her latest lover. She adored the French in everything from their gowns to their pastries, and to be at liberty to spend all day in bed with one...Penelope wriggled her shoulders in anticipation as a black hackney halted before her, the driver's gruff, 'where to, ma'am?' sweeter than birdsong.

Georgina watched the cab go with no expression on her face, and only when it was out of sight did she allow herself to breathe deeply again. Then the sweet smoke from a nearby opium house at first whispered, and then called her name distinctly. She could not say what exactly guided her steps towards the humped, hunched figure of an old man with slanted eyes who was crouching in the doorway, nor what prompted the desire to pay the toll and go inside. Once in the stifling pit, however, with fumes whirling around her head, she opened up her ears and listened. In the next hour, she discovered two things to her credit: one good, one bad, and a third which caused her face to light up with pleasure. Coins fell through her fingers like sand, and the filthy room's equally filthy inhabitants dropped to the floor to scrabble for them.

Georgina turned a sovereign over in her gloved hand and smiled.

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

Serena was trying to correctly respond to one of Nate's love letters with an sonnet of her own when the maid brought in Chuck's card, and thereafter her frustration over finding a rhyme for 'exceedingly' sprouted wings and became a fully grown harpy of rage. Laying aside the embossed paper and blotting her pen, she adjusted her posture so that when he entered, it was as though before a court: a stern, censorious look turning blue eyes that Nate had rhymed somewhat imaginatively with 'flue' to impenetrable ice, spine straighter than a ramrod and hands fisted together as though without restraint she might fly at him.

He bowed as low as was reasonable. "Miss van der Woodsen."

"I am conveying no messages," she replied sharply. "And perhaps you might like to visit our kitchens while you are here; I trust that a nutmeg grater might be found so you could shred her heart into yet smaller pieces – or was it not you that I observed speaking with Lady Penelope and Whoregina?"

Her crude language shocked him, for no lady had ever before sworn in his presence. "Madam, I –"

"No." Serena shook her head emphatically. "No, and no, and no again. I would blame myself for this malady as it was I who first introduced you, but I had thought that by expressing your interest to another you might be truly sincere for the first time in your miserable existence. You are condemning an innocent woman to a fate worse than death, sir, which is a lifetime of monotony and self-flagellation while you gad about with the promiscuous of London." Tears trembled along the edge of her lashes, for in times of passion Serena was prone to tears – a trait which, conveniently, Blair was not here to witness. "Tell me, my lord," she hissed, ire beating out sorrow. "Did you come here? To pass on a message? I will convey none. Did you come for my opinion? You may not have it. Did you wish to make an apology? Why, then you make it upon your bended knees, and to her face."

"Madam," Chuck repeated, his desire to snap back at her subverted beneath the need to present naught but a mask of humility. "I come here to offer help to your friend, that she might not tumble into sin unknowingly."

Serena sniffed and eyed him narrowly. "What help can you provide, my lord, that would not do her yet more ill?"

"Why do you think it is that my lady Beaton does not come to town?" He asked, a question in lieu of an answer. "Because I have it from a very reliable source that she is currently with child, and prefers the clean air of the country."

"You have had that from Lord Shrewsbury's mouth, my lord, and in this very room."

"And yet what we were not told is that his father fell from his horse but a few weeks after the infant Shrewsbury was born. He damaged...that is to say..." Chuck cleared his throat, avoiding the challenging and charmingly naïve blue eyes. "That is to say that he damaged a part of his anatomy which led the doctors to declare him impotent, leaving Lord Marcus his sole heir. The first Lady Beaton died a few weeks later of a fever she contracted during her laying in, but she was never strong; Lord Beaton married the current duchess two years ago."

Serena gasped. "Then you are saying that Blair is to be married into a family with an unfaithful matriarch?"

"No. What I am saying is that Lady Catherine's child is begotten not of the duke, my lord Edward, but of Marcus himself."

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

Blair's mouth was set in a firm white line, and in truth there were a dozen places she would rather have been at that moment: the bottom of the Thames, perhaps, or in the place of Anne Boleyn at her beheading. At that point, she would have even taken Serena's unenviable task of replying to Nate's ridiculous sonnet, but fate seemed to have dealt her a poor hand this day. Thus, she pressed her lips hard together, and hoped that a smile would surface sometime soon.

"The matter," Georgina Baizen said languidly, selecting another cream cake from the tray Dorota had provided. "Is one of very great import to you, my dear Miss Waldorf."

"Indeed, my lady?"

"Indeed." The former bit delicately into a piece of candied peel and forgot herself enough to briefly sigh her enjoyment before resuming a sombre look. "I know that you have most probably heard many things not to credit, and if you believed any of the slanders then I am sorry that your opinion of my character did not sway you otherwise."

"I would never, my lady." Blair's lips bloomed red as she spoke and then, like rose petals, returned to white and pinched as the moment died.

"Then trust me when I say this: there is a gentleman in our shared acquaintance who means great harm to you, and in order that his crime might be disguised, he shall bring proof to you that your fiancé is not the upstanding gentleman he seems."

An upstanding gentleman; when compared to the 'gentleman' of their shared acquaintance, of course, any man would seem upstanding and honourable. And yet there was something in Marcus – that flash when he had accused Chuck of a crime that in her innermost heart, Blair could not deny that she wished were so – which made her a little fearful of what manner of man could lurk beneath that vapid, vacuous surface.

"Indeed."

"Indeed. And yet..." Georgina's voice quavered, as if some deep secret were rising to the fore of her consciousness. "And yet there is more."

"More," Blair repeated flatly. "Pray explain, my lady."

Those green eyes seemed to glitter as Georgina laid one elegantly gloved hand over the smooth apex of her belly. Blair followed the movement with not a little distaste, and then surprise – for when the eyes met hers again, they were shining with tears.

"He does you wrong!" Georgina sobbed, so fervently and with such racking shudders and gasping breaths that Blair was quite afraid of her. "And before I was promised to my dear Carter, I did wrong also, and now I am being punished for it!"

Blair felt herself freeze. "Do you mean to say –"

"Yes." And now Georgina's eyes were glossy, glassy with tears, and harder than the flashing emeralds which swung from her ears like sickly pendulums. "The babe I carry is the issue of the man who would take your hand and disgrace you: Chuck Bass."

The teacup fell from Blair's hand, bounced twice upon the wooden floor and then shattered, spattering the rug and the rich, golden brown material of her dress with a spray of dark droplets steeped to the colour of blood. Georgina merely smiled, with a countenance which was equal parts self-sacrificing, self-satisfying and seductive. Blair's gaze remained fixed on her ruined dress, and then a dark tendril of hair escaped from its pin and swept downwards, shielding her face and the smallest, most insignificant of tears from the rest of the world.

* * *

_**I would like this time to give thanks to you all - frequent reviewers, fly-by-nights, lurkers - for your overwhelming response to this story as well as all my others. Your kind and lovely words of encouragement and tips for improvement touch me so deeply; I'd like to meet every last one of you in person, so that I could buy you a cup of coffee and a doughnut or five and we could hang out and perv over Chuck Bass.  
So this week, no dedications or naming. This week, I will publish two consecutive chapters (i.e. one now, one in about five/ten minutes) to say thank you - THANK YOU ENORMOUSLY (that is how large my feelings are) for being so freaking awesome.  
**_


	14. Treize: Jaune

**Treize: Jaune**

Who knew how long she sat there, not saying another word or letting another tear fall; how long after the teacup had smashed that Lady Baizen left her, or that Dorota entered the room and tried in every way possible to encourage her mistress to merely raise her head. Blair knew not what she felt because there was no person, no character in any novel or opera or play who understood how she felt in those long, dragging moments – she barely understood it herself. It was as if the core of Blair were not a living, beating muscle, but instead a delicate glass which had been empty her whole life until the worst of all happenings had began to fill it up with the belief that happiness was possible. It had overrun, and now it had shattered also. Yet it seemed that the pieces did not pierce her heart or, if they did, it was with such delicacy that death first crept, then came upon her slowly and finally consumed her whole.

No breath.

No feeling.

No flame.

"Miss Blair..." The hem of Dorota's black skirt nearly touched the tea stain as she knelt, trying to look up into the hidden face as she conveyed her message. "Miss Serena is here, and she bring –"

"Him." It came out in a monotone.

"I can send away, or –"

"No." Blair rose from the chaise, then began to mechanically tuck back a stray curl of hair and rub the gooseflesh on her arms. "Ask Hazel to lay a fire, Dorota. Send them in."

Serena was haunted by the image that greeted them as she and her unlikely ally entered the drawing room – indeed, she doubted she would ever be able to forget it. On one side of Blair loomed the great fireplace, setting her left side aflame and painting arms and neck and dress and hair and eyes saffron, umber and sienna; on the other was the pale coloured panelling and Blair's hated portrait, bathing her in the softest of pearly blues. She looked like some immortal creature trapped betwixt fire and ice, and Serena ached in the knowledge that it was so.

"Serena." Nothing of Blair moved, save her mouth. "I would a moment alone with Lord Bass."

"Of course." The Vanderbilt diamond flashed in the firelight and Blair's eyes flashed towards it, but in a moment it and the slender hand and the willowy, heedlessly graceful body attached to it were gone. Blair focused on Chuck, and felt the world shake as he looked back at her.

"I know you come to spread slander regarding my fiancé," she said aloud. He started.

"I intend to speak nothing but the truth."

"Truly?"

"Truly." Chuck took a few short steps towards her, confused by the hard look he continued to receive even as it seemed that he would trip upon her skirts. The room was hot, the combination of fire and greatcoat an unpleasant one; he flushed. "That which I came here to tell you I doubt you already know: that your fiancé Marcus has lain with his stepmother, and that the child she carries is his and not his father's."

Blair bit her lip as she had been doing all day, and it glowed redder than hot iron. "I see. And you seek to destroy me with this?"

Chuck balled his fists. "I wished to inform, to save any pain or slander you would receive by proceeding with a sham of a marriage to a man who is near enough committing a cardinal sin!"

"Save me pain. Save me slander." Her laughter rang out, high and empty. "What care you for my feelings, my lord? For who it is that I esteem, and who condemns me? What care you for me at all, save my use to give you pleasure?"

"I care!" He persisted, but so did she.

"What care you?" Blair repeated, stalking away from Chuck and down towards the great window where she could see the street and its busy, bustling parameters. "You do not love me. You will not have me. You do not seek any union of you and I save that of the flesh. You torment me with your presence! You seek to ruin my reputation!" Her voice had risen to a shriek, and she whirled and advanced on him once more. "What care you for me: Chuck Bass, seducer of women, begetter of bastards and breaker of my heart!"

He thrust the box into her hands because he did not know what else to do. For a moment it looked as though Blair would fling it from her, and then she pulled back the lid and stared.

"White gold," Chuck said softly. "And diamonds. I thought..."

His voice trailed away, and Blair ran her finger delicately across the beautiful, intricate detailing of a necklace she had never seen a match to. A row of sparkling lilies which seemed to burst into bloom in her hands; an exquisite, heavy heart as a centre piece which was cool on her hot skin and dazzling to the eyes. It had to be the most glorious of its kind she had ever seen, and certainly the most expensive.

But then, she had no doubt he could afford it.

She thrust the box back at him. "Take it away."

"No."

"I don't want it."

"You will keep it."

"I'll throw it away," she threatened, her tone as petulant as that of a child. "I'll have it smashed. I'll have it melted down and wear the diamonds on my wedding day!"

There was pain, sudden and blinding as Chuck gripping her jaw with one hand and pulled her towards him. The box clattered to the floor as his mouth found hers and she gasped, moaned, clung to him and felt her body bow backward with the force of the embrace. His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her mouth and jaw line, but Blair cared nothing for that; the delicious flame of that one forbidden night in the carriage had come upon her once more and seized her in its grip, made her vengeful and hungry for the agony of this kiss. Chuck sighed as her tongue seared across his lips, plunging his free hand into the dark mass of her hair and pulling free the pins to crush a waterfall of sweet scented curls in his fist. Eyelashes brushed his skin as her nails dug into his shoulders with such a force that he could feel it even through greatcoat, frock coat, waistcoat, shirt, all; she was a comet in his arms, a meteor, burning up and branding him irrevocably.

When they finally subsided, their foreheads were pressed together, both dewed with sweat.

"Can you say it?" Blair murmured, her mouth swollen and throbbing. "Can you say it now?"

And all the darkness in the world seemed to descend upon them in that pause. Her hands found his shoulders once more, and this time she pushed so hard that he staggered.

"Well done, Chuck Bass," said Blair Waldorf, passing one hand over her mouth. "I congratulate you, for I truly believed that you could uncover my better self. Now, however, I see differently."

She looked like a goddess to his eyes – half aflame, blind with hatred. He made a small movement towards her, but she stepped smartly back.

"I see differently," she repeated. "I see clearly. You thought to find my secret, to unwrap me like a gift and know me better so that you might understand why it is that being without me hurts you. I told you that you had broken my heart and you looked after me where I stepped, and I became engaged to another man and you engaged your spies in the hope that, in my despair at your revelation, I would turn to you. And you were right – my old self would have." Blair shook back her hair, and the perfume of it assaulted Chuck once again. "But by the end of tonight the old Blair Waldorf will be dead and buried, with no hope of a resurrection." She swept a deep curtsey. "And I have you to thank for the awakening, my lord, and for clarity, desire; all."

And now that goddess had become a monster.

"Good day, my lord," Blair said merrily, and then glided from the room like a sylph. As Chuck turned, it was to find Serena – who had clearly been eavesdropping – standing in the doorway, face pale beneath that bright hair.

"What have you done?"

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

"Blair!" The fish gulped as his fiancée entered his study, the smile on her face blinding above a gown of bright yellow satin. "Why are you here?"

"Just to see you, my lord." Blair's smile gleamed yet brighter. "And to have a question answered."

"Which is?"

"Oh..." She traced one slim finger up and down her bare arm, cream against pale against snow. "It is nothing serious." Her gaze flickered up at him from beneath dark lashes. "It is only a trifling matter; a qualm I have as to how your title will pass down, you understand, the line of succession in our marriage."

"The line...but Blair, surely –"

"As I said, not serious." Then the smile snapped off like a candle snuffed out. "Merely that I was wondering who would inherit first: my son, or the bastard you begat on Catherine Beaton?"

* * *

**_If you murder me now for the cliffie, then Chuck and Blair will never get it on Victorian style. Just saying.  
Happy chapter present, everyone.  
_**


	15. Quatorze: La Gourmandise

**Quatorze: La Gourmandise**

A week had passed since Blair's yellow gown and her oh so innocent smile had stepped over the threshold of Marcus' office, and now it seemed that all of London was subject to her gluttony. Gowns and furs she bought in abundance, until it seemed that the rich colours glowed in her eyes and glossy sable and mink and fox were nothing beside the shimmering mass of her hair. She had come to life, and society with her; while the older matrons tutted and clicked their tongues, the younger drank and gambled and danced the night away with Blair at their centre: twirling in her finery, casting diamonds into the gaming pot when she ran short of bank notes, shrieking her laughter and drinking glass after glass of punch and champagne. Her looks now were half-veiled and seductive, smile darkly curved and rich with promise; that particular glance she would cast back over her shoulder could bring any man to his knees.

She was flaming out, and Chuck could see it.

"How is she this evening?" He murmured to Serena as she passed by with Nate, sapphire studded flowers radiant in her hair as even she strove to match Blair's magnificence. "You have been watching her?"

Nate's blue eyes were steady, and it was he who answered. "She has had far too much to drink and already insulted two important ladies, and they –" He cast a disparaging look at the crowd of elegantly gowned women hanging about Blair like butterflies. "They do nothing but encourage and imitate her! She will have no reputation left if this continues!"

"She is attempting," Serena cut in sharply, taking a glass from Nate and looking as though she wished to upend it over his head. "To avoid the appellation of scorned woman or conquest, and to enjoy herself."

"With the likes of Katia Farkas? With Isabel Coates?" Chuck shook his head and ignored the daggers he received for the gesture. "She is trying to bury all that she feels – betrayal, loneliness, fear – beneath a mask of queenship. Shrewsbury is to blame, as am I." He met Serena's gaze squarely. "But I cannot help her if she refuses to see me, refuses to answer my letters and refuses to acknowledge the fact that her fiance is playing Oedipus and Jocasta behind her back! If her mother –"

"No." Serena sighed. "Eleanor would advise her that, come rain or shine, a good name is better than any moral consideration. I have no doubt that it is her greatest desire for Blair to become Lady Beaton, and Blair will accede to her mother's wishes as she has done all her life. It is partly her mother's fault that we are in this mess in the first place, with all her talk about virtue and the immorality of loving another person – not to say that you, my lord, and your astounding ability to let the cat take your tongue at the crucial moment did not exacerbate it mightily."

"And so she plays the part." He watched the pale hand flutter onto first one sleeve and then another, the painted mouth purse to hide the pallor beneath.

"Could you not just say it?" Serena asked tentatively. "Lie, indulge her, so that she would be free to begin again?"

Chuck's countenance was grim. "You misjudge her if you think that she would not see through the lie, the indulgence; if you think her free." His gaze lingered upon the exposed nape of Blair's neck, the forbidden skin which both taunted and admonished him. "I think in this case we are far more likely to catch her with vinegar than with honey, excuse me." He handed his glass to a bemused Nate and, to the astonishment and general censure of the ton, strode boldly across the room and made his niceties to the best appointed of Blair's new lackeys. Slowly, she herself turned; her lips curled up.

"Why, my lord, are you here for a hand or two?"

"You and I are walking." The closed circle of his fingers around her wrist looked merely perfunctorily, but as Blair's eyes narrowed and she began to scowl and surreptitiously attempt to twist from his grip, she realised it was to no avail.

"Pray excuse me, girls." The high pitched giggle which left her lips made Chuck's ears ring. "I do believe I have another suitor!"

He ground his teeth but she let him drag her across the room, all the while pausing and smiling and dipping curtsies to friends and acquaintances and even to a shocked Lily van der Woodsen, to whom Chuck offered a tightly wound smile and a swift bow of welcome. Unlike her daughter, Lily seemed more than comfortable to let her libertine godson drag her almost ward off into one of the anterooms – for there was a time for velvet curtained alcoves, and this was not it – and to close the door behind them, propping a chair beneath it in the hope that any other would-be suitors would consider it locked, and therefore barred from their interest.

She tried to walk – that new walk that he loathed, with her slender hips swaying like a whore's – away from him and across the room, but he caught her arm and whirled her, almost snarling at the nonchalant smile she shot back at him.

"Are you quite finished?"

"No."

"Then what are you doing?" The warmth of her skin was familiar, even through the barrier of two pairs of evening gloves; he closed his eyes momentarily. "Trying to completely eviscerate yourself, the you that feels pain or fear or anything at all?" Her eyes were black and insolent, and all at once he longed for the deep ire that burned in them when he roused it; indeed, he longed for anything but this childish façade of devil-may-care. "It won't work, believe me, I've tried it."

"Truly?" The eyes widened in mock acclamation. "Then perhaps I should summon some of the East End's finest, get them with child and then really live the high life, would that suit?"

"This is not you."

"And how would you know?"

"Because I know you better than I know myself."

A moment of stillness followed his words, where Blair cast her eyes downward as if ashamed of what he might see in them. All too soon, however, they flickered back up, the black lashes like dark cobwebs over the moon.

"You see straight through me, don't you?" She took a small step forward, closing the space between them. He swallowed. "Down to my core." Her fingers closed on the lapels of his evening jacket, slipped inside so that her palm was splayed over his heart. She smiled at the resulting stutter in its beats, pushed forward with a gentle press of her well laced breasts against his front so that he was backed up against the wall, looking at her with blank, recognisable lust and fresh, unfamiliar bemusement at war on his saturnine face.

"Do you remember the first time you saw the real me?" Blair murmured, her crimson lips so close that Chuck could smell the champagne, burning and intoxicating on her breath. "That night, at Lady Sparks' ball? A Blair with none of the hauteur, none of the frustration, ready to give herself to you there and then, to have and to hold –" He shuddered at the words of the wedding ceremony as she leaned in, letting her tongue flicker against his ear. "Isn't she," Blair breathed. "The one you want? Because she is the woman standing before you now."

She laid her lips daringly against his neck, and Chuck groaned in spite of a previous resolution to remain silent. He heard her quick intake of breath, felt tension began to build in the arms that held him. And Blair, who had never done so before, only ever met him halfway or given a little and then let him drag her onward into the darkest recesses of their souls, first assessed his silent, challenging face and then captured his lips with hers.

A quick, sharp burst of hellfire.

And then her hand was gripping the back of his head with delicate fingers which belied their strength. "Take me now," she whispered, and then kissed him again as if she could not help but do so.

Guilt twisted the knife in Chuck's gut even as he let himself revel in the exhilarating sense of her champagne laced kisses, in her sudden pleasure at this unexpected control when he did not resist her hands rising to grip his face and thrum along his jaw line, turning flesh into flame that he was surprised did not sizzle beneath her fingertips. He wished her mouth would sear his lips shut, that he could merely delight in the ecstasy she offered and not risk it all for something that was not important, not consequential...and yet it was he who, in between fighting the desire to do her bidding and do right by her, managed to choke out, "Why?"

She drew back, eyes like onyx. "To prove that nothing matters."

"No." He blinked, shook his head, tried to force his feelings back into their boxes and the naked, blinding, flaring desire he felt for her back into a place where it could not deprive him of his resolve. "This is not you. This is not the Blair I want."

Her hands lifted. "And I never will be again."

Chuck searched her face for something of the girl, something of her humanity still hidden within the impassive harsh beauty like gold among dross. Again, she hid her eyes from him, looking down towards the polished floor and the softly draping skirt of the white and blue gown which, according to the gossips, had cost Marcus a pretty penny he had been only too eager to part with. But again, back up came the black eyes of the usurper, the whore, the monster Chuck had created from Blair's skin.

"Goodbye, Chuck," she said, and then she was disentangling herself from him and dissembling his temporary blockade and gone, without another word spoken.

He stood there for a long while, hearing a clock tick he knew not where. In his heart – if he had a heart, for it was an organ he had always strenuously denied – he knew that he was losing her, that this gluttony for life and drink and him would be but the first of the seven levels of Hell rising to consume her.

And he did not want to lose her.

Chuck leaned his head back against the cool panelling and closed his eyes. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that the first glimpse of forbidden fruit in a dour church service would be his last of any rational bent. In the beginning, he had wanted her because of the challenge she presented, the prize on offer; now, he esteemed her quick wit and her clear bright eyes and the mirror she held up to his soul, her face reflecting his, their sins as one.

Could that be what she wanted to hear? What she called 'love'?

The door creaked open.

"Blair?" He asked, his entire purpose suddenly riveted on the doorway as if her return might spell the answer to his dichotomy. In lieu of the pale slender figure he sought, however, he received another: pallid to the point of milky, chalky, unhealthy white, too tall and too lanky and too much of a spindleshanks with its pale blue eyes to be anything other than an overgrown fish in the garb of a gentleman.

Marcus.

But not Marcus as Chuck knew him.

"You." The word came out as a growl at the self-satisfied demeanour that hung about the other young man like the gloss on an orange peel. "What did you tell her?"

"But that would spoil the game." Marcus entered the room proper and closed the door behind him, his fishy eyes hot with glee. "You see, the lovely Blair and I have an arrangement: she bears my heir, and then I leave her be – an agreement satisfactory to both parties. After all, what other wife in London would turn a blind eye while I cavort with the incomparable Catherine?" He snorted. "Why, only such a woman who was too far gone as to mind being the foil for such a terrible husband: only such a woman as one who is already head over heels for a man who will never have her."

Chuck strode towards him, stopping only when Marcus was forced to lean back in order to avoid actually being bitten. "You did not answer my question, Beaton. What did you tell Blair?"

"Oh –" The Lord's pallor had whitened still further, but he affected dispassion in the face of Chuck's fury. "Let us say that you are not the only man in London who has Georgina Sparks in his employ. Did you think she would not sell her services to the highest bidder, Bass? How else do would she pay for the jewels and fans and fripperies that Baizen is too busy draping on his mistresses to offer to his wife?" He smiled slyly. "It is a boon, her condition."

"Beaton," Chuck snarled. "If you harm Blair, if you cause her even a moment of distress –"

"You'll what?" Marcus asked mockingly. "Trip over your own tongue and let fear unman you?"

Chuck punched him. His fist glanced off the elegant slope of Marcus' nose with a sickening crack and he cursed, gritting his teeth at the throbbing pain in his hand and at his raw knuckles as the fish shrieked and fell to the ground, snorting indistinctly and trying with every article of clothing on his person to stem the blood flowing thickly from both nostrils.

"I will kill you," Chuck swore. "If you so much as touch her hand, then I will kill you. I will set this right and then she will leave you, you whoreson."

Marcus tried to say something else, and Chuck stamped on his fingers. That seemed to conclude the conversation.

* * *

_**Let me explain the change in the chapter title: I did plan to have all the chapters as colours, but soon realised that wouldn't be feasible without going green and then teal or turquoise or orange and then umber or sienna. Thus, chapters fourteen to twenty will each be named after the seven deadly sins. Bonus points and a gold star to you if you can figure out what each one is.**_

_**Before I say my usual thank yous, here's an important one: **_**BassKingdom**_**, you totally called the 'Marcus is evil' storyline. To be honest, someone had to be Georgie's motivation, not to mention that some of you wanted to see Chuck hit Carter and all we saw were Chuck's bruises, and I wanted to give you a punch worth the wait. So, kudos to **_**BassKingdom_, whose hilarious reviews make me squee._**

**_And to all of you - whether you're blonde, brunette, redheaded, no haired, crazy haired or Scott Pilgrim's Ramona haired - you are all such wonderful, fantastic, fatasmagorical cheerleaders and friends that I could not do without you. A cake full of rainbows and sunshine and unicorns goes to: _Stella296, TriGemini, _the indubitable_ BassKingdom, vivalachair, _my Twisted Sister_ bethaboo, _my accomplice in Taylor Momsen's murder_ SaturnineSunshine, CrazyBitch10, abelard, finnlover (_me too!)_, JustRaeInc, chuckandblair2456, Hades Daughter _(cool name!)_, notoutforawalk _(I love you for the chocolate and the pillows. Consider me your slave)_, Dr. GG, Itconsumesme _and_ tvrox12.**

**_Like me, Chuck is a whore for a s'more and a review, but he'll give you nudity whereas I won't._**

**_Until next time...  
_**


	16. Quinze: l'Avarice

**Quinze: l'Avarice**

Blair laid aside her book and stretched, fingertips straining towards the canopy and a smile of sleepy contentment upon her face. "_Le Morte D'Arthur,_ Dorota – surely it must be the most romantic book in the world. Arthur the king, and Guinevere his queen, and valiant knights setting off on noble quests that they might win her favour." She flexed her shoulders, enjoying the supple motion of muscle beneath skin, and sighed. "There could be no better partnership than that of Arthur and Guinevere; what I would not give for a marriage such as theirs."

"But Guinevere love Lancelot," Dorota pointed out, one eyebrow arching towards the undermaid, Nelly, as the girl laid a fire in the grate.

Blair bounced upright in bed, forgetting decorum for a moment in her consternation. "She loved Arthur, Dorota, and she chose Arthur. Lancelot was nothing more than a girlish infatuation, a fling, the passing sickness of a season or two."

"She choose Lancelot," Dorota said firmly, and deep crimson stained her charge's cheeks.

"Arthur and Guinevere were the perfect couple! None could deny it!"

"Miss Blair." The maid decided that indeed, she was bold enough to sit at the foot of bed and ignore the look of surprise such an action merited. "I, your father, even your mother – we no want you to be perfect couple." She stretched out a hand, hesitantly, and laid it over Blair's own. "We only want you to be happy one."

Blair's voice was like ice. "Happiness is an advantage, a possibility, and a dream. Wealth, position, status, security; I desire nothing more than those." She extricated her fingers slowly, one by one, and Dorota bowed her head. "Tell the new girl not to be so slow about my fire next time. I chill easily."

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; that was how the good book had it. Chuck sifted through sheaves of paper as though they were wheat to be separated from the chaff, his face impassive as the carriage bumped and jolted over rutted roads and tracks which would have left any man with less in his head feeling sick to the point of death and begging to turn back. When they sloshed through potholes – and what with the weather and the state of the roads, such occurrences were frequent – he simply gritted his teeth and read faster until his eyes flashed across the page at a speed which seemed to verge upon the ridiculous. The scheme he had in mind was simple, and Chuck was surprised he hadn't thought of it before; the papers, however, were to no avail.

Three raps sounded on the roof. "Five minutes to the hall, my lord."

Chuck rapped back once, and then decided to forgo all dignity and stuck his head out of the window. "Arthur?" He called to the driver, who sat muffled on his perch in heavy coat and scarf and gloves. "Make it two."

The house was a little too nouveau to be considered classic, and far too French to be considered elegant. A veritable Versailles sat at the end of the long sweep of drive, its magnificence wasted on the eyes of the Bass servants. The Lady Elizabeth had believed that humility – that is, humility and taste – should always trump one's desire to appear wealthy in the eyes of a rival. Chuck, therefore, had forgone his usual finery in favour of a black frockcoat and trousers, his waistcoat an unusually muted shade of green. He had come to visit an enemy, and this enemy was more than greedy enough to note the sharp tailoring, the expensive cut which rendered him loaded and dishabille: a striking combination, especially to her lewd tastes. It was upon these that he focused as the carriage door was opened and he stepped down, the great door already open to receive him and a butler already chomping at the bit to take his coat and hat – yet it still came as a shock when he entered her drawing room and beheld the spider in her web for the very first time.

Catherine Beaton could not have been more than thirty, with an aristocratic look about her face and cold blue eyes which assessed her guest like a cut of meat. Her hair was pale gold, running a little to brown, and the huge bulge of her pregnant belly could not conceal a trim figure and the tiniest feet Chuck was sure he had ever seen. Not even dour light of the day could disguise the gloss of her, the sheen of self-satisfaction that he himself had been wont to see in the mirror – until her.

"My lady," he said, and bowed. She inclined her head.

"Forgive me for not rising, Lord Bass, but my situation is delicate."

"Indeed. May I sit?"

"Of course."

He could not deny that she had that allure about her, that her movements were graceful as she set about organising the tea tray, pouring and handing him a cup heavily laced with sugar and milk. The polite concoction felt odd, suddenly: he had grown used to the appalling stuff Blair drank, and when gone from her company rarely imbibed save for champagne, scotch, or the occasional glass of wine or small beer. Once he had taken a polite sip or two of the bland, effeminate drink, Chuck replaced his cup in its willow patterned saucer and smiled darkly at his hostess. Catherine, however, did not return the compliment.

"I know why you are here, Lord Bass," she said, and then sipped her tea with a kind of precision. "Marcus does not come to my bed solely to chat, so I am assured that this visit of yours can mean no good." She raised neat eyebrows. "You wish to make a bargain with me, and to a proposal I have no objection."

Chuck's smile disappeared like a candle flame snuffed out. "Admit your duplicity to the duke, or I will tell all of London of your perversion."

"Truly?" Catherine batted her lashes, and her guest was not fooled. "I am afraid then that poor, innocent, heavy with child Lady Beaton would be forced to nip that little rumour in the bud, and send you into disgrace for slander." Her eyes slanted sideways. "Perhaps you should try a little harder, my lord, and think before you speak."

Chuck changed tack. "How much would it cost for you to persuade Lord Marcus that marriage to the daughter of a mere baronet is beneath him?"

"More than you have, I assure you – there is every advantage for me from the match." She patted her swollen belly. "When young Miss Waldorf is fully committed to Shrewsbury, there will be no doubt of this child's paternity and no obstruction to my time spent with Marcus."

"So what would it take for you to consider a settlement with me –" Chuck's eyes became harder, slanted like Lady Catherine's own. "More advantageous than a few romps in the sack with your milksop of a stepson?" And from the inner pocket of his coat, he drew a wad of envelopes, carefully tied together with a red ribbon and holding, beneath the satin tie, a curling lock of all too recognisable hair. The lady gulped, and her guest tilted his head upon one side and waited.

"Where did you find those?" She hissed, lips blanched. "Give them to me!"

"My lady!" Chuck affected an expression of sugar sweet sympathy. "You must not distress yourself – for the sake of the child."

"Damn the child!" She sighed, gritted her teeth, and then clutched the round mound of her stomach with both hands. "And damn you to Hell too, you thieving little guttersnipe!" Sweat beaded the lady's high brow; her eyes were huge.

"You may consider the time ripe to ring for a midwife," Chuck said calmly, replacing the letters in his pocket. "Or you could perhaps take a few deep breaths, reconsider my offer, and get me gone from your property forever." The charm was gone as she hesitated. "This," Chuck hissed. "Or the streets for you, my lady Beaton. Think it over."

She did not keep him waiting long.

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

"Miss Blair –" Blair was brushing her hair in anticipation of Katia Farkas' Shakespearean themed ball – Blair herself was going as Titania, in a gown of gauzy white tissue with not a 'what, jealous Oberon' in sight – when Dorota made the slight knee bend Eleanor had always insisted upon and Blair rarely enforced and entered her charge's bedchamber. Blair looked up from her toilette to see Dorota's eyes unusually bright, her hands busy with smoothing already smooth hair back beneath her cap.

"You have visitor, important visitor," the maid explained. "You must go downstairs now."

Blair briefly examined her reflection as her mind picked over who precisely could have sent Dorota into such a rapture. She had not yet changed her gown for the evening, and the plum coloured silk she had on was still attractive, if a little inappropriate for receiving calls. It was an inappropriate time to be receiving visitors, if the truth were told; it must be Marcus, come again with yet another trinket that he hoped would win her silence, if not her pardon. Blair sighed, and decided not to waste precious time putting up her hair. She was still a virgin, after all, and thus had every right to wear it loose.

"Thank you, Dorota," she said, and rose. "I will be down directly."

"He in the white parlour, Miss Blair," Dorota replied. "Drawing room is not in fit state for important news."

The room Chuck had been shown into was filled with glass cabinets displaying all manner of wondrous things: birds' eggs and animal skulls and crockery, mystical looking lumps of crystal and spindly objects made of silver and brass. The room was a marvel, no doubt, although it looked as if little enough time were spent in there: the white couches and chaise longue were springy, firm to the touch, unindented by the backsides of callers or well-wishers or ill-wishers or any other creature that Quality could provide. The air had a room of dejection, if not decay, and he laid his fingers on a marble bust which stood in the window and waited for the door to open.

When she spoke, her voice was cold fury. "You have no right to be here. That you forfeited on Friday last."

She was surprised that when he turned, he had a smile for her. "And yet when you hear what it is I have to say, perhaps you might reconsider laying a _fatwa_ upon me?"

Blair's heart thumped. She scowled. "I will speak no more on a subject we have exhausted."

"What of a different topic? Shall we speak of this extraordinary room, then?" He swept one hand about him, indicating the treasures which were displayed all over and which glinted with each flash of doubly reflected light. "I knew not that your father had travelled in so many places and collected so many intriguing artefacts. We could discuss the statue of the goddess Khali?" Chuck indicated the crude wooden carving, the deity's tongue lolling as she panted for blood. "A particular favourite of mine, and of yours too, I have no doubt." He made her a swift bow, and Blair pinched the bridge of her nose between forefinger and thumb and sighed.

"Speak, then; I cannot bear your small talk."

"That's my girl."

Blair opened her eyes, genuinely captivated by the lightness of his tone. "What is this, my lord? It is your business to lurk in corners or steal about in the dead of night like an incubus, not to smile and scrape and look upon me as if it did not pain you to do so."

"If I have news for you? Of a nature you would appreciate?"

"Speak, Chuck."

He smirked. "That Lady Catherine Beaton is ready to refuse her favours to Lord Marcus if he declines the dissolution of his engagement with you."

If he had expected her face to light up in pleasure or melt away upon a tide of tears, then with the result of Blair's countenance – stony, unsatisfied – he was disappointed. She looked blankly back at him, and her dark hair rippled as she shook her head. "And that is all? Not that there was, perhaps, after all this time, something you wished to say to me?"

Chuck was confused but still stepped forward, drawing up Blair's hands from her waist and holding them, fingers fast intertwining in the habit of threads. "Don't you see? We don't need that. We don't need to – to quantify. You know my feelings upon the subject, and I know yours. We may go on as we did before, in companionship, and I may once more work at charming my way into your regard." He looked down into her face, half veiled by loosened hair. "Surely this is excellent news."

A sigh escaped once more, through her parted lips, and then she rose on her toes and pressed her forehead against his. A strange sensation: the embrace that was not an embrace, but more as though she wished to convey a thought which was greater than words and to have it understood. Her skin was cool, like the skin of the marble lady in the window, and he was for a moment chilled as Blair closed her eyes, breathing out in one sweet exhalation like one who had been relieved.

And yet she had not.

"Chuck Bass," she murmured. "I love you – so much, it consumes me. You spoke to me of ice and I blazed out fire; but you do not understand anything!"

He was surprised at her sudden ire, struck by this sudden second declamation, perplexed as she turned her back on him and directed the remainder of her speech at the palely panelled wall.

"Do you not understand? Do you not know that there is no minor clause which will bring us together, no scandal which will cause me to give myself to you? I cannot bear it, that you think I seek marriage solely for title and circumstance and that such a thing can easily be overcome with your money and your persuasive words!" Blair turned back, and Chuck was horrified to see tear tracks glistening on her cheeks. He opened his mouth to speak, but she forestalled him in a low, measured voice that seemed at every moment on the verge of trembling.

"Seeing you hurts me. Being with you hurts me. Hearing your name or your voice or even of you causes me such great pain that I can barely stand in place." She cast her eyes downward, focusing on the toes of her slippers that her hair might form a veil once again. "I do not wish to know you anymore," Blair said quietly. "I do not wish you to seek me out, or try to rescue me from what you perceive as an undesirable situation. You are not my husband, nor my fiancé, nor my lover; you are certainly not my father or brother or friend. Please," she whispered. "Go away."

Chuck was struck, halted, caught in a place of flat grey despair where he could but reach out to her, blindly; reach out and be refused.

Refused once more.

And still Blair spoke.

"I have been too afraid of losing you to counsel my own heart. I was willing to pay all, give all, with no thought to chastity or dignity or whether you truly cared for me or no. If that is love, if I –" A grim luminosity hung about her, shining with the tears in her eyes and unholy iridescence of her blanched skin as she shook her head. "If that is love, it comes at much too high a cost." The tears fell and she breathed him in, laying her cheek against his chest and letting the flame come between them, ignite them both.

"I never thought it was possible to love someone too much," Blair whispered.

He pressed his face to her hair, murmured words in the hope of absolution. "We have to see this through to the end."

"This is the end."

It was darker than pitch in the white room, and more silent than the grave.

* * *

_**If I haven't made it clear thus far, your support and encouragement means the world to me. It was touch and go there**** for a little while, but your faith in me and my abilities won the day: so thank you. I could not have grown as a person or a writer without incredible people like you on my side, and you make the dark places light when it seems as though they're unbearable. New rule, however: I'm all for freedom of speech, which is why I have previously allowed derogatory reviews to remain in my database. From now on, though, reviews which do not serve as constructive criticism and can therefore be classified as 'flames' will be deleted upon receipt. They can't get rid of me, but I can sure as hell erase them - so if you feel the need to criticise something, please do so in a manner which is polite and helpful.**_

_**You all came through for me: the lurkers, the regulars and the newbies. I can never thank you enough, but here goes - dramatic, climactic, enticing, exciting, hair-raising scenes of love (not saying mine is, but I hope you get one someday!) to:**_** QueenBee10, bethaboo, Tru, svenjen, TriGemini****, vivalachair, abelard, SaturnineSunshine, Syrianora, Krazy4Spike, finnlover, BassKingdom, notoutforawalk, Petite Poppy, Star-crossed92**_**,**_** xxktnxx,**** Dr. GG, ****batgirl2992, tvrox12, Lalai, lv, Charmander, sk280, npigal, Hades Daughter, KillerNewton, PrideAndInsolence, blair4eva, annablake (_I miss you!), _sleepdeprived91, xtina, HnM skinnys, Rf, flipped _and _writing in her own way.**__

_**Now, to a bit of business. Due to the whole re-upload issue, you may not be able to review this chapter - but that doesn't let you off the hook (especially all you smexy lurkers who promised to review every week if I didn't hang up my pen)! Please take the time to leave an anonymous review (and please tell me who you are, maybe keep your pen name the same?) and tell me what you think. In any case, you guys pwn.**_

_**Love you forever, as does naked Chuck.**_


	17. Seize: l'Acédie

**Seize: l'Acédie**

Chuck never knew quite how he ended up on the doorstep of the van der Woodsens' elegant townhouse, only that it was raining, he was very drunk and Blair no longer wished to see him. It was to this end that he decided to tell appalled passersby all the reasons why they were in no way equal to The Honourable Blair Waldorf in beauty, elegance or character until Buckman, the van der Woodsens' butler – most probably on orders to dispose of the vaguely familiar vagrant cluttering up the front steps – hustled Chuck inside and into Lily's parlour where he stood shivering before her, a blot on the landscape of an otherwise perfectly appointed room.

"Charles," Lily said evenly, distinctly nonplussed by her godson dripping filthy water all over the Turkey carpet and reeking of six kinds of alcohol. "Where are your shoes?"

"What?" He said blankly, and then, "Ipswich."

"Ipswich," Lily repeated. "Your shoes are more than a day's walk away, and in truth you are so incredibly inebriated that you felt the need to tell Lady Holland that her eyes are not the particular shade of brown that attracts you, and therefore she ought to 'take herself elsewhere and direct her glare at someone who cares'. Charles," she said, this time more softly. "What are you doing to yourself?"

"She doesn't want me," he rasped. "She wants Beaton, with all his buggering tendencies."

Lily flinched, and Chuck had the grace to look ashamed.

"I apologise."

"Oh, hush." She waved a hand dismissively. "I have certainly heard worse after a lifetime in London."

"Really." There was utter darkness in his tone, and it lacked the lilt of a question. "Then perhaps you might permit me to tell you a tale about the kind of animal that destroys an innocent girl simply to slake its own lust." Chuck sat down abruptly, seeming far more chagrined at landing in a chair than he had upon recounting that his shoes were in Suffolk. His eyes were fixed upon Lily, fierce and bloodshot. "Do you know what I would have done to her? What would have become of her when I was through? I would have taken everything from her, and then moved on to the next girl as if Blair Waldorf had never been."

Lily arranged the slender skirt of her day dress and refolded her hands, wondering whether her intervention would help or hinder. After a long moment of silence, she spoke.

"I was in love with Rufus Humphrey – you did not know him, but it was at his funeral that you first encountered Blair." She smiled sadly at Chuck's look of bemusement. "I loved Rufus Humphrey for most of my life, but when he applied to my mother for permission to marry me, she turned him down. He was too poor, too common, and a man who was making a life for himself through work instead of title was not the match she desired for me. I married William van der Woodsen, and we had a wonderful life and two wonderful children together; that, I do not regret." Lily smiled at the thought of Serena, of her future home and happiness, and of Eric, away at school now but always dreaming, always building castles which came to no consequence in the air. She looked at Chuck – wild, unruly, uninhibited Charles – who seemed at this moment more her son than he had ever been Elizabeth's.

"Charles," she said again. "The Good Lord put us on this earth to be both pleasure and pain to one another, and to share good times and bad. Blair fears the pain she finds in your presence; that it is the inevitable outcome of the love she bears you. But I promise you most sincerely that it is far better to feel pain with the one you love than to be alone. Do not make the same mistake I did, and let her go." And if Chuck were her son, this day and all days, then Blair would certainly be considered her daughter. "Fight for her."

"She doesn't –"

"That has no bearing here," Lily said crisply. "Do you wish for her to marry Lord Marcus?"

"No."

"And have you tried to the very extent of your abilities to dissuade her from the match and to look kindly upon the merits of your company?"

"Yes."

"Try harder."

Chuck looked up in surprise. The older woman's gaze was like steel, and it matched the bright azure of her daughter's in tenacity if not hue. Lily's eyes were a delicate shade of brown, the colour as light and luminous as polished teak. "Do you have a scheme?"

"You do," she replied. "Primarily: part of Blair's fear is born of the fact that Georgina Sparks played you false and told her that you were the father of her bastard, and that we must address. A thing of secondary import is Lord Marcus, and I am assured that he can be dealt with when we have broken with Lady Baizen. Finally –" And the look was hard, blunt, and sat ill on her finely boned face. "You know what you feel, and whereof your pain stems. That emotion, however, is one you must name to Blair; she is the only lady in all the world qualified to hear it."

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

When Blair was five years old, her father had returned – one of his rare returns from overseas, when he chanced to remember his wife and his daughter and arrived just in time to insinuate himself into Blair's juvenile heart, leaving no space for the cold Eleanor – and had brought her a canary in a cage with barley sugar twisted bars. Blair had been enchanted by the gay little creature, its plumage as vibrant a yellow as Serena's hair, its song extraordinarily sweet. It had almost made up for the ache in her heart and stomach when her father had departed once again, murmuring something about trouble with the Tartars and a man named Roman. It was from this canary that Blair had learnt a certain kind of fortitude: in the face of adversity, sometimes the best course of action was to hide one's head and play dead.

Which was, at present, precisely what she was doing.

She had gone up to bed upon sending Chuck away and now, a day later, she was still hidden beneath the coverlet, breathing the same stale air with a tumult of fear churning her stomach to near sickness. Dorota had come with macarons to tempt her out, but she would have none; Serena reminded her of the Marchioness of Pembroke's ball, and still she would not stir. Even the thought of planning a gown for Almack's could not draw her from beneath the sheets, and now her two caretakers – her maid and her friend – stood over her swathed head and spoke as though she were not present.

"She will not come out, Miss Serena."

"Not even for macarons, Dorota?"

"I have tried, Miss Serena."

"Do you think we should –"

"Is perhaps not a good idea."

"It would certainly bring her to the surface."

"Miss Blair took to bed after Mister Chuck gone, surely –"

"Do not," said Blair, her voice muffled by the heavy bedspread. "Dare to call upon him in the hope of getting me out. I would sooner jump from the window."

"B, please."

"Go!" The indistinct voice now had a clear edge of hysteria. "Go away, both of you! Now!"

She heard the soft press of shoes into carpet as the two tiptoed away, and when Blair finally swept the layers of choking fabric off her face it was to gulp dizzying mouthfuls of fresh air, clutch at her sides and weep.

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

The lady and the libertine; they cut an attractive figure as they entered the shop that afternoon, its proprietor leaping up at the presence of a marquis-cum-duke incumbent and the fashionable Lady van der Woodsen, one of his most prominent customers.

Lily swept a brief curtsey to Mr Brown, offering him a gentile smile. "Sir, I come with a somewhat unorthodox request."

Mr Brown made a flourish with one of his small, neat hands. "At you service, my lady."

"Boys," Chuck said shortly, with a glare which could have felled the Marquis de Sade in one fell swoop and also directly refuted the aspersion cast upon him by a request for boys. "We need to see your shop boys, sir, and pray be quick about it."

The gentleman quailed and shot through the door of his anteroom, returning presently with three boys, each in a neatly pressed uniform with 'B' embroidered upon the collar. They were not so distinct in physiognomy, differing little in appearance: all were dark haired, dark eyed, and certainly looked discreet enough to beget a bastard on a wife-to-be and not breathe a word to their employer.

"Names."

"Jonathan Whitney, Sir."

"Elliot Boardman, Sir."

"Daniel Humphrey, Sir."

Chuck felt Lily's fingers tighten on his arm, and realised at once that he had been mistaken in not differentiating between his subjects: the first two were striplings, and only the last had been long enough in the world for his voice to have dropped below the greenest of squeaks. How Lily's eyes clung to the lines of the youth's face, as if tracing them with her bare fingers; with what ardour did she regard him, as softly and simply as if she were looking upon her own son. Her companion regarded him also – and yes, this was the boy from the church, the one who had sat stoically while Blair comforted his mewling sister in her proper gown of black with her hair pinned up and her neck improperly bare to the eyes of a lover.

"Mr Brown." Chuck's tone was brusque. "We shall have need of young Mr Humphrey for the rest of the day. You shall, of course, be compensated." A thought occurred to him even as the stock of Byron which had yet failed him on only one occasion began to wax poetical on the charms of Blair's neck.

"Mr Brown."

The man had just begun to speak, but ceased with a quiver of jowls when he was addressed.

"May I inquire as to whether the trousseau of a Miss Blair Waldorf falls under the jurisdiction of your establishment?"

The vendor removed his spectacles, polishing them nervously on his white sleeve. "Indeed it does, my lord."

"It is paid for." Chuck handed off his card. "You may send the bills to me directly, at this address. You may also tear up whatever it is you have begun for the lady, as I assume it is in whatever pale, washed out shades you consider appropriate for a new bride. The best, sir, is what I require of you, and in bright shades which would better befit a peony than a fern."

Despite his chagrin, Mr Brown was a consummate professional. He doffed his hat, assured the customer that all would be done as requested, and did not bat an eyelid as he and the lady escorted his most popular assistant out of the shop and into a closed carriage. Only when the vehicle was out of sight, however, did he lay Chuck's card down on the counter, wipe his brow, dismiss the boys, and retreat into his office for a very large measure of a very strong gin.

Chuck countered Lily's quirked brows with a cool, even look. "The day that Blair Waldorf marries Marcus Beaton is the day I become a man of the cloth, but a little sentiment never goes amiss. Now –" His gaze snapped to the young Humphrey, who was cluttering up the carriage with his looks of awe and uncomfortable posture. "Give me one good reason why I should refrain from killing you."

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

"Miss Blair..."

"Go away, Dorota."

"But Miss Blair, you have visitor."

"I will kill you," Blair returned darkly. "If you have fetched him."

"No, Miss Blair, but Mister Baizen –"

"Mr Baizen?" Blair sat up straight, the heavy coverlet falling away. Her white nightgown shone in the late afternoon light, streaked deep golden as a halo lit her hair. Her expression, however, was somewhat less angelic. "What in the world can Carter Baizen have to say to me, other than to express his very great apologies for succumbing to inebriation to the extent that he would have dishonoured me, were it not for the prompt action of –" She stopped, paused, and shook her head. "I will see him, Dorota. Serve him tea while I dress."

Carter had long considered himself a connoisseur, a lover of beautiful things; however, the sight of Blair descending the stairs in her modest blue gown was far more provoking to him because she was forbidden fruit than because she was a woman at all. Had the ignoble Chuck Bass truly wounded his face and his pride for such a slip of a thing? Her waist could hardly be two hand-spans, and she had no bosom to speak of. She was too pale, too small, hardly robust – she looked to him as fragile as a china doll, a woman to be taken and served lightly. Nevertheless, he rose as she entered the drawing room, making her a courtly bow which was far too low for a debutante and which fringed on the insulting.

"Miss Waldorf."

"Mr Baizen." Her tone was acerbic. "I would that I could fathom the reason for your visit, but it appears that even the sense God gave me cannot make out the truth of the matter." The set of her brown eyes was equally frosty. "Perchance for attempting my violation at the very ball which was to celebrate your engagement? Many felicitations on the marriage, of course."

"I have come because my wife has done you a disservice."

Blair's eyebrows rose. "Indeed? Perhaps in that she chose to marry you at all."

"Perhaps in that she told you that the bastard child she carries is the issue of your lover."

The lovely face iced over, became harder than glass, and Carter observed several emotions flicker over it in quick succession: astonishment, grief, disbelief, anger. Finally, she took a seat on the chaise beside him and asked, in a tone which was strained but measured, "And you mean to conjecture that this is not the case?"

"Yes."

Blair was at war with herself, fighting off a desire from every direction and infinitely confused. What did she – or could she – feel now? The ache in her gut which came not from hunger, nor from thirst, but from loneliness? The foolish elation she felt upon hearing Carter's news? The suspicion she bore him, that he would deign to help her thus?

"He is not my lover," she finally replied. "And clearly you gain something from this revelation."

Carter's eyes were as blue as Serena's, but not half so guileless. "Only, my dear Miss Waldorf, to give you cause to wonder why he would not tell you so himself. It is, after all, a vicious lie; I hear that our mutual friend Bass has in fact been visiting the child's father this very afternoon for one reason or another. It is a shame he did not tell you so himself, and indeed a greater one that you are bound in a loveless match because of it. My card." He laid it down upon the table, just as Chuck had laid his in the soft, girlish but talented hand of Mr Brown. "Pray call upon me when you begin to wonder why he is keeping secrets."

For a long while after he had taken his leave, Blair sat still and gazed at the fire. A single tear slipped from her right eye, and rolled down her cheek in one perfect succession.

No more fell.

* * *

_**Yes, the plot thickens...but don't kill me just yet, as I have a surprise for you: now that it has been sent to a tester group, I can officially confirm that the final chapter of The Fire Below before the epilogue (chapter twenty) will contain a graphic sex scene. Yes, you've asked for it. Yes, you've waited for it. As a little spoiler, let's just say it came about after my viewing of a certain scene in 4x07 - so I hope that gives you something to look forward to in your daily lives of work, school, food, exercise, love, friends, dancing through puddles and blowing kisses.  
**_

_**Thanks to: **_**Martian, Krazy4Spike, BassKingdom, vivalachair, blair4eva, ****Stella296**_**,**_** TriGemini,**** TruC7****, batgirl2992, notoutforawalk _(your suggestions always make me giggle)_, DarkSmile, Rf, Dr. GG, abelard, SaturnineSunshine, louboutinlove, Lalai, roxxisaid, Syrianora, cj-the-greatest, tvrox12, bookworm455, Kirsten _and_ Ali _(your review genuinely touched my heart - thank you). I wish you all meetings with your billionaire exes that _**_**end on grand pianos with excellent soundtracks or, failing that, Blair's killer topaz earrings. I hope we can all meet someday for martinis and macarons.**_

_**If you haven't yet, come join the party on Twitter or ask me anything on Formspring - both links are on my author page.**_

_**Chuck would like me to inform you all that when thinking of you, he wears a bowtie...and nothing else.  
**_


	18. Dix Sept: l'Envie

**Dix-Sept: l'Envie**

Of late, Serena had felt keenly the loss of her dearest friend. Even swept away as she was upon a sea of nearly married bliss, she could not but blame herself for many of the events which had occurred and affected Blair so; never in her wildest dreams had she thought that the malaise which had afflicted her friend for so long could be tempered or, indeed, destroyed entirely by the vexation caused by a man Blair had declared herself incapable of esteeming. Yet something in Serena's own heart had urged her onward, prompting the fit of matchmaking which had led her to a deeper, far more satisfactory acquaintance with Nate and forged the beast which ate its own tail: Chuck and Blair, Blair and Chuck, her best friend and one of London's most infamous seducers. How could she have anticipated such a turn of events...and how in the world could she possibly put a stop to them?

But she could feel no shame, nor give any apology when she beheld what awaited her in the Waldorfs' blue parlour upon her arrival.

"Miss van der Woodsen." Carter's pronunciation of her name was honey smooth enough to raise the fine hairs on Serena's arms. He did not even bother to make her the courtesy of a bow, instead remaining in his seat with one arm slung casually about Blair's slim neck and shoulders in a manner which far surpassed unseemly and which verged upon disgraceful.

Serena spoke stiffly, her lips and the posture of her body tight. "I came to speak with Blair."

Blair appraised her friend too coolly. "You may speak, S. Carter and I have no secrets from each other."

"But I have my own," Serena replied. "And it would be infinitely preferable that the husband of a dubious woman with a dubious character in his own right should not hear them."

Blair made a great pantomime of sighing and attempting to rise, restrained twice by Carter and his roving hands in a manner which made even the laissez-faire Serena feel shame on her behalf. At home with her mother, Chuck would surely be engaged in trying to control his temper while she herself undertook this errand; he had been all for breaking down the door and dragging Blair out by her hair, but Lily had taken point and decided that a gentler manner of persuasion was needed. As Blair finally joined her by the door and thence into the hallway beyond, Serena wished quite fervently that she had brought the less than ardent suitor with her, duelling pistols and all.

"Well?" Blair folded her arms, leaning casually against a china cabinet in an manner which made her friend wince. "What have you to say, Serena?"

"I wished to ask you if you had taken leave of your senses." How she longed to strike the elegant, arrogant face which was stretched so tightly over Blair's. "You break bread with Carter Baizen, the man who would have violated you without a moment's thought! What of your fiancé, Blair? What will Marcus say when he sees you causing a scandal?"

"That I have done nothing more and nothing less than what he has, cavorting with his stepmother. Where do you think he is now, Serena?" Her eyes were glassy, but not with tears. "He is 'paying his respects' to his 'honoured' mother in some godforsaken spit of country somewhere, and cares not what I do. Why, I could dance naked in the streets, and still he would marry me because I am the only woman alive who would conceal his secret."

"I see." Serena still feared for the china cabinet, but her terror for her friend was greater. "And there is no one else you would wish to alarm? To give cause to be jealous, envious?"

"Who can you be talking about?" Blair returned silkily.

"That it now seems clear that I know you not, and that you cried into my shoulder because you loved some other object dearer than Chuck Bass."

The two young women eyed each other for a few moments of stillness, both breathing hard, two mouths pressed together to form thin, white lines of repressed emotion. Blair was the first to recover, though but a hint of the real woman peeped through her façade as she said, "Carter is helping me build a life. All Chuck can do – all he has already done – is destroy one."

"As far as I can see, his greatest crime was to help you," Serena countered hotly. "I have thought you many things in my life, Blair, among them cold, callous and cruel, but because you are my sister and my friend I would never have voiced these aloud." Her blue eyes glittered, darker than frost. "But I would never have guessed you for a whore."

Blair served a stinging slap to Serena's right cheek and then, vanity not served, to her left. Her palm tingled from the blows, but Serena did not cry out; instead, she bit down upon her lip so that it blushed scarlet, and looked Blair in the eyes.

"It was not my wish to come here," she said quietly. "For I was afraid that you would hate me for putting you in the path of Chuck Bass in the first place. I was afraid that you should scorn me, and spit on me, and say 'you are not my sister' over a matter of love – _love_, Blair, such as you thought you should never have – but I see now that my fears were unfounded." She advanced upon the smaller girl, so that Blair was dwarfed by her shadow. "You cannot love," Serena said cattily. "You mother cured you of that virtue, and so you will run in the opposite direction when there is an opportunity to love, and to be loved in return."

"Chuck Bass does not love me!" Blair cried.

"And yet all of London says he does." Serena shook her head. "I will leave you, dear friend, with your adulterer. I will leave you to think yourself proud and high and mighty and spurned – yet you are deceived in yourself if you believe that not seeing or saying 'Chuck Bass' will purge you of your love."

She had ever had a flair for the dramatic, but as the young Miss van der Woodsen swept away she wondered if she had done quite the right thing. For sure, Carter Baizen's acquaintance was no boon for one like Blair Waldorf who, no matter how inflamed her heart by suppressed passion, was nothing more than an innocent. She could paint her face and agree to marriage with this lord or another, but in the end Serena hoped that the ultimate prize – her maidenhead – was one which Blair would save and let blossom, like a bud upon a branch, until the time was ripe for the right gentleman to pluck it. She could only pray that Carter Baizen would never be seen as 'the right gentleman' or, failing that, that the cohort now gathered at the van der Woodsen house would be primed for action before anything untoward could occur.

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

"I do not play games, sir."

"I am sure you do not, my lady."

"So you must understand me when I say that this is a one time payment, and hereafter I never wish to see her face near me or mine again, is that understood?"

His eyes flashed. "Understood, my lady."

She tipped her head to one curious side. "She is a slip of a thing, too weak and faint to last long in a whorehouse or out on the street. What in the world can you want with her?"

The ink was barely dry on the page as the dark man snatched it up, folded it and pushed the precious document into his saddlebag. "Whorehouse or stewhouse or wherever she ends her days, her value to me is far less than to another: a mutual enemy of ours." He swung himself into the saddle, felt the lady's eyes on his face and her hand upon his girth. "Take away the light, and even the strongest of trees shall wither. Remove the girl, and even the broadest of backs will be broken."

She watched him ride away, still bareheaded, still brazen, and made no response when the man behind her lightly kissed her lips and bade her come inside.

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

"Are you sure we ought to be seen together? And here?"

Blair anxiously smoothed the front of her gown, cursing her own stupidity at having purchased the damned thing in the first place. Its design had been sent straight from hell to allure, and seemed positively ecstatic to be doing the job: though elegantly draped sleeves and a gently curving neckline gave the illusion of cherry red innocence, the layers of ruffled bustle and the deep V which left half her back bare made her feel like a whore. Perhaps she was, she reflected darkly, tonight at least; for here she was at Almack's with a married man as her escort, gowned in scarlet satin like the devil's own with half a fortune's worth of topazes in her ears. She despised that she could no longer plead nausea to keep Carter's hands from her; damn Chuck Bass.

And damn him once again.

And damn her from thinking on him.

Carter's voice was low, lugubrious in her ear. "Please. I am a married man, you a very nearly married woman. Who would dare gainsay us?"

"I wish I could be quite so sure."

He offered her his arm. "You have a choice, of course. You may stay out here, return home, and let society think that a cad has broken your heart. If that does not appeal, you can go in through those doors like the queen you were undeniably born to be, and show them."

And that was not a choice at all.

She laid her fingers on his arm, smiled prettily and tried to forget. The liquor he had plied her with earlier in the evening helped, as did the collective gasp when they were announced and all of society beheld her – was she beautiful to them now, now that she seemed desirable and promiscuous and undone? Now she was no longer the frigid wallflower who had clung to the glamour, the sparkle of a beloved friend with no light to shine of her own? It had taken but one man to think her beautiful, and she had indeed tumbled into absentmindedness like Alice down the rabbit hole. One could not forget the past, but perhaps the future – the ache in her gut, the pounding in her head and the everlasting, unremitting ache in her heart – could wait for another day. She was offered punch and accepted. She was plied for dances and accepted all comers. She noted in an offhand sort of way that Serena and Lily had arrived, but knew not that she was being ambushed until another pair of hands had her waist, and a well placed elbow sent her partner reeling. Her heart began to pound, a rougher rhythm than the beat of the music.

He said nothing for a few moments, merely holding onto her with a bruising grip which brought colour to her face and a stirring to life deep, deep in her belly. They moved in step, in time, and still he said nothing as her body rejoiced at the contact, coherence and clarity of mind lost in that one glorious instance of unity.

What a traitor her heart would have her be.

"Do not touch me."

"Is the heat too much?" He offered, and she flushed still hotter.

"You have no right to touch me."

"And Carter Baizen? He has a right? Blair –" Her name, her name parting his lips and shaping his mouth; how she loathed him and longed for a kiss both at once, and yet she had sent him away and disdained his company and...oh, how her head was spinning. She shook it back and forth as if to shake out her own desires, and he held on and shook her.

"What game are you playing?" Chuck demanded, looking at the unfathomable blackness of her eyes and seeing nothing but his own image reflected back at him. Her inebriation had made her soft, pliant, warm beneath his hands and unutterably arousing. She would be his undoing, he was sure of it; his tongue stuttered over the right words as he thought back to Lily's advice, to her knowing smile. He shook her again. "Do you want to be known as the whore who fucked a married man and played truant from her own fiancé? What do you hope to achieve from this?"

"I have a right," she replied haughtily. "To see and speak to whomsoever I please."

"Whomsoever _you_ please?" He sneered at her naivete. "As if Carter Baizen is consorting with you for any reason other than to get some sort of rise out of me."

"Of course." She tried to pull from his grasp and struggled when she could not, stamping her little feet in the hope of hobbling him. All colour had drained away from her cheeks, and now she was white with ire and deadened arousal as she spat, "Because no man could care for me but you – which you do not, as I seem to remember! I am desirable to no one but you, I am of import to no one but you, and you own me, naturally!" She leaned away from him when escape attempts proved fruitless, forcing her body as far back from his as was humanly possible. "You said that you and I were just a game, so here's your game: I will leave with Carter, and I will do what I will, and you renounced any claim over me a long time ago!"

"Hear hear."

Chuck did not even need to turn to observe the odious Baizen's presence. Reluctantly, he loosened his grip on Blair, who was now standing perfectly still, her eyes fixed on the apparition hovering over his left shoulder.

"If Miss Waldorf wishes to leave," Carter continued. "Then she may." Chuck turned as he bowed to her, as deeply as for a queen. "Where to, mademoiselle?"

"Home," Blair said faintly. "Take me home, please."

"As you wish."

The tightness in her chest, internally smothering resumed as Blair wrapped her fingers tightly around Carter's arm and drew back her skirts from Chuck, walking away as if she had not a care or thought in the world for him. It had come down to a choice between love or life tonight, bending to his will or following her own down whatever pathway she was currently traversing. She was silent as Carter escorted her outside, helping her into his carriage with all civility before rapping on the roof to set them rattling away. It made bile rise to her mouth, and tears that she refused to shed to her eyes – that he, the other, still made the world seem bright and vivid, set to colours instead of shades of grey. She had never believed in love, and as such had never thought that one could love too much, but this...this love was killing her. This love was draining her dry, her heart's blood redder than the whore's gown dressing down a lady, or the lady's gown on a whore. Try as she would to have a spine of steel, she would bend in the wind if he bade her. This was why she needed Carter, Marcus, anyone – anyone to prevent her unwitting willingness to be miserable for all her days.

There was a terrible lurch, and the carriage dropped abruptly, listing to one side with a shriek of metal. Blair went hurtling from her seat and onto the floor, jolted into agony as her left arm struck the seat at an angle, numbing the entire member as her dress sank in crimson waves and wavelets around her.

"What is it?" She asked, appalled.

"It appears that we have broken an axle," Carter announced nonchalantly, surprisingly still in his seat. "We shall have to change carriages to get on our way – luckily enough, however, we are presently in the very avenue in which my house is situated." He gripped her elbow, pulling her to her feet with apparent deafness to the resulting gasp as feeling returned to her damaged arm with a lightning strike of agony. "We need only stop for a minute or two and then we may proceed to your home directly."

Blair eyed him suspiciously. "Only a minute's respite?"

"Indeed."

The door opened, and the driver bade them exit, and Blair – stumbling a little with pain still blazing through her clavicle and shoulder blade – hung onto Carter and allowed herself to aided a little way up the pavement and up the front steps to a neatly appointed townhouse with a pane of reddish glass above its front door. She entered, and the portal was closed abruptly behind her.

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

It had been some while since Blair had left but still Chuck was frozen, immobile, caught in the middle of the dance floor with couples swirling around him, skirts brushing against his legs and rude looks abound. His mind seemed to be working very slowly without the additional lubricant of alcohol; mayhap he should make haste to Bass' Corner, to that poor excuse for a punchbowl and –

"...of Shrewsbury and Lady Beaton."

Marcus was here.

Marcus was here, in public, sans Blair and with Catherine.

Chuck's lethargy became crystal clear refraction with the speed of light, and his near sprint across the ballroom garnered him a collective intake of breath from the assembly and a few shrieks of surprise from the more poorly bred present. The nail in his coffin, however, was his very great satisfaction as he lifted the fish by the throat, pushed his back hard into the wall and watched him begin to turn purple as Catherine's hands fluttered to her mouth – after all, one did not see one's lover set upon by a marquis every day, especially one in flawless evening dress with a murderous glint in his eye.

"I am to gather," said Chuck aloud, with perfect civility. "That some sort of deal had been brokered between you and the bastard Baizen. Would you care to tell me where he is?" He ground Marcus' cravat further into his throat, and The Lord made an odd popping sound. "And what exactly his plans are for Blair?"

* * *

**_Well, chickens, you can guess what occurs now: you go Fight Club on me while I write the next chapter. Yes, I'm a horrible cliffhanger type person, but to be honest there is still so much drama to go (including underwear, spoons, a gazebo and that hot sex I promised) that this _had_ to be the cutoff point, or the next chapter (including scars, stripping, Doctor Chuck to the rescue and a paper knife) would have had to have been entirely restructured, leaving you dangling off the edge of that cliff for even longer. So please feel free to hurl 'boo, you whore!'s my way, but no rocks...thanks in advance._**

**_Oi, reviewers - you are the wind beneath my wings. The time you take to write even a 'like' or a 'lol' warms my heart like napalm. Hugs and kisses to: _Stella296 _(part of my personal Fight Club)_, Ali _(you definitely deserved recognition, you day brightener you)_****, QueenBee10, niinjjakiitten, abelard, notoutforawalk, vivalachair, batgirl2992, HnM skinnys, TriGemini, Lalai, Krazy4Spike, D, louboutinlove, KillerNewton, TruC7, tvrox12, SaturnineSunshine _(also in Fight Club, and a ringer to boot)_, bethaboo _(who I should basically live with, seeing as all I do is dump my vids/writing/day lemons on and let her make magical Twilight lemonade) and_ Dr. GG. _I've express mailed you all bedhead Chuck's with snorkels, for bathtime fun!_**

**_Until next time..._**


	19. Dix Huit: La Colère

**Dix-Huit: La Colère**

"Sit," Carter prompted, depositing his damaged guest onto a couch in the first room they entered. "I fear I shall have to send for a doctor."

"I can stay but a moment, Carter, and then I must be on my way." Although the attentions of a doctor – any doctor – would have been welcome to Blair at this point, she could not help but feel uneasy: the surfaces in the room all bore a thin layer of dust, and there was a queer, stale smell about the place. Her eyes darted hither and thither, first to one locked door and then another. "Carter," she repeated. "I must be on my way."

"Is something troubling you, Blair?" He approached her, carrying in his hands two recently poured measures of whisky. "I thought perhaps a dram of liquor might ease your pain, why do you not –"

"No!" She batted aside the proffered glass. "We have been in your house but a few moments and yet you are pressing me to stay longer and plying me with alcohol! I was already suspicious when I realised at what proximity we were to this house, with such a convenient excuse for that being so." Her eyes narrowed, but their darkness was not free of fear. "What game are you playing with me, Carter? What do you hope to achieve by this diversion?"

Carter chuckled, and knocked back his whisky. "You truly deserve more credit for your wit."

"That is not what I asked you."

"Let us do this your way, then." He casually let the crystal fall through his fingers and smash. Dregs of amber liquid splashed Blair's beautiful skirt as the crystal sprayed, bright shards dancing away from them in every direction; she winced, looked up into Carter's laughing face and found herself fixated by what she found there. He towered over her, a sudden monolith of a man, here in this long forgotten room with the evidence of treachery bedazzling the floor beneath his feet. "Your way," he told her. "Is perhaps the more difficult of the two, but at least you will not be running headlong into disgrace quite so blindly. Blair –" How his use of her first name made her shiver. "Do you remember the first time we met? The insult I paid you in the gardens? Your knight errant, rushing to the rescue?"

"He is not –" Blair began, but Carter forestalled her.

"Deny it as you might, there is a great similarity between myself and Chuck Bass. We both adore beautiful things – beautiful women, really – but some of us are not so gifted with easy manners as he." His face darkened. "And one can never return a slight or do him some disservice, because the bastard cares for nothing in the world; he is untouchable." Carter's cold blue eyes fixed upon Blair, and they seemed to be studying her quite as intensely as she were studying him. "But then you came along – the lovely Miss Waldorf, the virgin Miss Waldorf, Miss Waldorf with her enigmatic malady and her disdain for the company of men. It seemed at first that you would simply fall into line, drop into the gutter when he had had you and was satisfied. No one ever dreamed that such a touching tableau would present itself: the maiden ready to risk it all for love, and the rogue unmanned by unexpressed sentiment." He made a crude gesture with his forefinger and thumb, and Blair swallowed her disgust with a throat becoming drier by the moment. "And it occurred to me," Carter continued. "That the only remaining stick to beat him with was you. What more fitting punishment for a man whose coattails I have been forced to ride upon and whose dregs I have been forced to drink – to prevent him from gaining the only thing he has ever truly wanted."

Blair felt enclosed by her own skin, felt it shrink upon her bones, every instant chilling and infusing her with yet more dread. "But I am innocent in all this."

"Yes," Carter agreed, as if they had merely been discussing the weather. "Because you love him, you are a fool; but because he loves you, you are a valuable commodity."

Blair could restrain herself no longer, and she rolled her eyes with as much exasperation as she could muster. "Why must the entirety of polite society insist that Chuck is in love with me? It is quite clear that –"

"That he would fight for you, chase after you, waste his time on you with the promise of no reward."

"And what is my punishment to be, for the romance I have no coherence of?"

"Disgrace," Carter replied. "When the servants come to rouse me in the morning, they shall find we happy two in our undergarments, in rumpled sheets which speak of nothing but lovemaking. You shall be destroyed in the eyes of society, worthless. He shall never be able to pursue you again, and you will not dare stir out of doors for fear of being spat upon and shamed."

Of all the cruelties Blair had envisioned, this was the very worst – it robbed the breath from her body, knocked her backward so that her spine sagged against the dusty chaise. She was, however, a Waldorf, born under a volley of cannon fire in the very mouth of Hell. She forced herself to sit upright, grit her teeth against the pain which was now all pervasive, throbbing in her shoulder, and glared at her captor. "I will never lie with you," she swore, pulling herself to her feet with her good arm as she did so. "You may have my congratulations on your plan, for it is diabolical in the extreme. It was you, I suppose, who sent Georgina to me, and you who made sure that Chuck would discover Marcus' folly and try and use it to win me. I suppose Lady Catherine has a part to play also, for I assume I am no longer anyone's fiancée, let alone that of her lover." Her petite, slim frame barely rose past Carter's chest, but she glowered at him as though she were quite ready to draw swords and do battle then and there. "But I will never submit my body to you, Carter Baizen; if Chuck Bass is so great, then his greatness comes from the fact that he did not have to kidnap me to force me into loving him."

And, vulgarity of all vulgarities, she spat in his face.

Blair's spittle oozed slowly down Carter's cheek as he regarded her: eyes on fire, glorious in her red gown, aflame with righteousness. He withdrew from his pocket a white handkerchief whose fumes saturated the air upon exposure and struck, clamping the sodden fabric over Blair's mouth and nose before she even had the time to consider running. She shrieked, tearing at him with her nails, but to no avail. Her stomach churned, her head swam, and all too soon the tiny flecks of black dancing across her vision became blooms, and then hulking towers, and then all-consuming.

As depraved as he quite merrily was, Carter could not bring himself to force his attentions on an unconscious woman. Methodically, he wiped his cheek, gathered up the diminutive form from where she had sunk to the floor and began to climb the stairs to an upper bedroom, calling Georgina's maid as he did so: the young woman was to be stripped to her undergarments, put into bed, and locked in.

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

When Chuck was twelve years old, he had broken Nate's nose.

It had been an accident – two gawky boys, a flailing fist, a lucky hit – but ever after Chuck had striven to make amends for the previous injury by striking blows for his friend if ever they were necessitated. He had never truly forgotten the guilt of felling his friend, of the almighty _crack!_ and the pain in his knuckles as Nate had dropped to his knees, blood pouring in a viscous fountain down his surprised face. Thereafter followed the husbands, the pickpockets, the instinctual agitators who had taught him to serve a blow neatly; in this situation, however, Chuck was more than happy simply to asphyxiate the gurgling Viscount Shrewsbury until his eyes popped out of their sockets or he decided to be reasonable.

"Well?" He inquired, still polite.

"Let him down, for heaven's sake!" Lady Catherine shrieked.

"You should calm yourself, ma'am," Lily instructed her coolly, gliding to Chuck's side with a gentle rap of her fan on his upraised arm to remind him that Marcus was now turning blue. "It would hardly do for you to give birth to your bastard in the middle of the assembly rooms."

The crowd began to buzz excitedly: Lady Catherine's babe was a bastard? Then who was the father? Why did the salacious Lord Bass have Lord Beaton by the throat, seemingly with the approval of Lady van der Woodsen? Where in the world was Miss Blair Waldorf, and what could she have done to inflame the crème de la crème to the extent that a common brawl could begin here, in the heart of Quality? Fans fluttered and gloved hands concealed whispers, and Marcus floundered like a fish with all the amusing symptoms such a state entailed.

"Marcus," Chuck said silkily. "You took something of mine without asking, and I am simply asking you to inform me as to its whereabouts."

Marcus gurgled incoherently, and Chuck slackened his grip slightly and cocked his head to one side. "What was that, my lord?"

"He – he took her to Lady Sparks' pleasure house," Marcus wheezed, his voice but a wisp of sound which was nonetheless audible to all in the room, evidenced by the exclamations and clamour of sound which arose at his admission. "On the other side of the park."

"Excellent." Chuck offered one of the more rakish of his smiles unto the now quite apoplectic Lady Catherine, made a brief nod of apology towards Lily and then punched Marcus in the face. Yet more uproar was born of this last hoorah, and Chuck dropped his victim – who was now conveniently out cold with a noticeable crack in the panelling behind him – bowed to the assembly, blew on his knuckles, summoned the widely grinning Nate to his side and left with a swirl of immaculately cut black evening dress, leaving the felled lord of Shrewsbury to be cradled by his mother, his lover, and the mother of his child all in one personage.

"You cannot deny it," Lady Abrams conjectured to her friend, sipping champagne with a curl of her lips. "The boy has style."

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

"_Baizen_!"

The roar echoed through the otherwise silent house, and Carter sipped his drink thoughtfully. He really had hoped for a quiet conclusion to this messy business, but now that bullets were pinging off his front door with alarming alacrity, he supposed he had no choice other than to sit in the study and let Chuck shoot the door down. He counted silently in his head, and wondered if the intervening period had allowed Blair's dose of ether to wear off, or whether she would still be sleeping like a babe – albeit a babe in untainted white undergarments – with all the uproar her rescuer was causing.

The door fell down. Carter was slightly surprised, until he noted that Chuck was not carrying a pistol, but a blunderbuss.

"Baizen," the erstwhile hero snarled, gloves absent, dark hair rumpled and cravat dangerously close to becoming untied. "Where is she, you bastard?" The blunderbuss approached Carter's nose. He steepled his fingers and regarded his adversary who, in all honesty, looked quite unhinged. It was only to be expected in such a situation, but still rather droll when one considered that this was Chuck Bass, social dandy and the ladies' darling.

"By she," he replied evenly. "I assume you are referring to the lovely Miss Blair."

Chuck snarled. Carter raised his eyebrows.

"She is upstairs, locked in one of Georgie's guest rooms in her undergarments. The plan was, you see, was for the two of us to be discovered together so that you would never be able to have her. It is unfortunate that you are here now, sooner rather than later, but as it is you have three options." Disregarding the gun, Carter selected a paper knife from the array displayed on the desk and began flipping it from hand to hand, slicing his thumb back and forth across the blade in a show of bravado which did nothing save lightly score the skin. "One, you take the girl and leave. Someone will note her state of undress, and she will be ruined. Two, you leave this house to find her some clothes. I am sorry to have to inform you that upon your return, I will already have done with her what you could not achieve – harder and better, I might add, than your paltry bid for her maidenhead. Finally –" At this, Carter laid down the knife and once again folded his hands, regarding Chuck as curiously as once might regard an exotic creature in a cage. "You may stay here and watch over her, on the sole proviso that in the morning, when she has rested – I was forced to drug her, you see – we play a little game."

"What game?" The tone of Chuck's voice was one his aggressor had never heard from man nor beast.

"A game of chance: cards, to be exact. Poker."

"The stakes?"

"Blair's freedom, and her ability to leave this place unmolested."

"How do I know you'll keep your word?"

"You have a gun," Carter pointed out. "And I have no doubt that I could beat you at any game devised by man."

"I agree," said Chuck roughly, lowering the blunderbuss. "On one condition."

"Which is?"

"Blair's freedom is hers alone." Their gazes were locked, blue into impenetrable darkness, rage and uncertainty flickering through Chuck's eyes like the flashing skirts in a peep show. "I will back her and pay her dues, but it is she who must play against you." He pressed the gun against Carter's throat once again and watched him swallow convulsively. "We do not own the things we love, Baizen," he said, enjoying the look of consternation on that bland, handsome face. "They own us."

The tips of Blair's fingers were tinged violet, and she shook a little more with each passing moment. Stripped down to the very basic necessities of her wardrobe – chemise, petticoat and corset – with even her corset cover and rational drawers taken from her and with no fire, she was slowly freezing in the unheated room. Her head pounded from the fumes of ether, and the agony in her shoulder had reached the point of unbearable. Each convulsion due to cold jarred it still further, and she had began to fear that it was not muscle that had been damaged, but bone. Despite all her hopes to the contrary, she was still struck to the core with despair when the door opened to reveal not only her captor, Carter, but also Chuck, looking as dishevelled and perturbed as she had ever seen him.

"You," she accused, teeth chattering. "Are a terrible rescuer."

Chuck ignored her, striding into the room with a pre-emptive, "I am keeping the key, Baizen, now go." Once inside the palace of ice the decadently decorated bedroom now presented, he immediately knelt at Blair's bedside and turned her face towards him. She slapped his hand away.

"This is all your fault."

"I know." He ran his fingers over her bare shoulders, and she cried out.

"How?"

"The carriage jolted, and I fell."

"This is dislocated." Chuck felt hollow at the thought of what greater injury he had still left to inflict and, inexplicably, rather put out that she had not been at all grateful to see him. "I shall have to set it for you."

"So do it."

"Blair, this will hurt a great deal."

"I said do it!" There were tears in her eyes, glistening like trapped mercury. "How useful shall I be with one arm?"

"As you wish," he retorted. "Hold onto the headboard."

She gripped it hard, grimacing as he gently straightened the off-kilter arm and wrapped his hands around her shoulder. "Hand," he instructed, and his met hers with that same strange spark of electricity she had felt upon their first meeting, at the first touch of his lips on her wrist and now, at his hands upon the heat of her wounded flesh. Blair gripped his fingers as though her life depended upon it, screwing shut her eyes and biting down into the plump flesh of her lower lip.

"Courage," he told her, and then her entire body juddered as he twisted and jerked the limb, pulling it free of entrapment above the shoulder blade and easing it back into true with an excruciating _pop!_ which caused quite as much distress to him, he was sure, as to her. She curled away from him, into a ball, sobbing quietly as blood flushed the repaired joint and wave after wave of anguish rippled through her. The ache in her shoulder was nothing, after all, to the dagger in her heart – he had not come to rescue her, simply to set her to rights and to leave her again. Carter was right, for what a fool she had been to ever – to ever –

She was shocked out of her pessimism by the depression of the bed as he climbed in beside her, one arm slipping around her waist to cradle her shaking body while the other stroked back her hair, dark, sweet words slipping from between his lips as the tears continued to fall.

"Never," Chuck breathed. "Never would I hope to cause you any pain." He cleared his throat, swallowed, began again. "I am truly sorry for the pain I have caused you, and I promise I will make amends – even if it takes me the rest of my life."

"The remainder of your life is not mine to take," Blair replied. "There is no love lost between us, because there is no love between us."

Chuck sat up abruptly, and removed his jacket. He draped it over the recumbent Blair, who said not a word but drew it around her. Then, as he began to remove his shirt, she turned awkwardly onto her back and looked up at him with wide eyes.

"What," she inquired. "In the world are you doing?"

"You deserve the truth, do you not?"

She did not answer, simply cast her eyes across the broad planes and lean muscles of his torso as he draped the shirt over her also.

"The truth," she said, after a moment. "What is the truth, Chuck?"

"That I carry the truth of what love is capable of with me always," he answered, and turned his back on her.

Blair gasped.

* * *

_**Quoth you all, 'again with the cliffhangers, biatch? Are we going to have to set our minions on you?' Well, sweet friends, I hope you'll restrain yourselves after a taste of what's to come: a boy, and a girl, and a love game. Each of our darling heroes has a dark past yet to be revealed, but will it force them together or tear them apart? I can't believe I've only got two chapters and the epilogue to go - this story really is my baby, and you have no idea how much I've enjoyed sharing it with you. Proof? I allowed myself to be semi-etherised in my Bio class yesterday to see exactly how Blair would feel when Carter drugs her. It was foul. **_

_**This week, a special shout out: to the incredible **_**Noirreigne_, who not only pwns me talent-wise but who spends her non-obscenely busy moments reading and reviewing me, as well as keeping my chin up._**_** You're a brilliant friend and a criminally good author, so thank you.**_

_**To the rest of you hoodlums, with your headbands and Falke stockings, I offer oodles of thanks and sexily flavoured macarons. Snaps to**_**: blair4eva, D, svenjen, QueenBee10, BassKingdom _(your list of boos had me in stitches, ma amie)_, HnM skinnys, abelard, Krazy4Spike, notoutforawalk ****_(you make me LOL like nobody's business, keep it up!)_, tvrox12, batgirl2992, TriGemini, Stella296 _(I know I broke fight club rules, but it's only because I love you so much)_, comewhatmay.x _(same to you, our fight club is only public because ours is the love which dares yell its name loudly)_, TruC7 _(I think you understand what I'm writing better than I do!)_, Petite Poppy, SaturnineSunshine, hotlittlestarlet _(thanks for joining us)_, _and_ niinjjakiitten. _I have express mailed you all unkempt Chucks with guns - use them well._**


	20. Dix Neuf: l'Orgueil

**Dix-Neuf: l'Orgueil**

Blair was no mealy mouthed country miss – she had been raised, after all, in London, where the filth of humanity coated the streets and washed in and out of taverns like a sour scented flood – but only adorning the idols of Christ in church had she ever seen a wound quite so horrific. The scar was pure butchery, white and livid, stretching nearly from shoulder to hipbone in one horrendous slash. It appeared as if someone had tried to joint him, carve him up for sale, and the thought of such anguish set the pain from her dislocated shoulder firmly in the shade. Her stomach lurched and bile laced her mouth, and she could hardly bear to look upon the atrocity that some damned person had visited upon Chuck – her Chuck, for surely she had quite as much claim on him as any – without being half-crippled herself.

"It was my father," he said, quite calmly. "He loved my mother to distraction, you see, and without her he was never quite the same. You never met my father, but I resemble him very little; he hated me for my mother's face, and one night when he was drunk he took up a poker in the hope of never being forced to see it again."

Blair could well imagine the scene, and it shook her to her core: that proud spine and noble carriage bowed beneath the weight of blows rained down upon it by the unlikeliest of assailants. The prodigal father must have beaten his son half to death in order to inflict damage like this, and shown no mercy to the broken body he had begotten upon a long departed beauty. "It has healed well," she ventured.

"It has had more than a decade in which to do so."

"You were a child?" She was appalled.

"Yes." He half-turned his head, staring at the empty grate which was itself furnished with the full complement of tools. "And while you are perfectly within your rights to hate me for all the hurt I have visited upon you, you should know that I am not ignorant of love – it has left me flawed, as you see: a white mark upon a blackguard. I thought it right that you be the first to know of it."

"The first?" Blair's brow furrowed. "But your reputation, your penchant for...companions."

"They looked at me as little as I looked at them." Chuck's eyes were still fixed upon the grate as if he hoped to summon a fire by force of will alone, and his voice was bitter. "Unfortunately, it appears that you are the only woman I have ever in my life been capable of looking at. I do apologise for the inconvenience."

"Don't," she said sharply.

"Don't what?"

"Whenever you speak the truth to me, it makes you cold and hard, for you judge what I will say and think even before I can even do so myself. I am not about to forestall you with my judgement; these are not the wounds of a man who knows nothing of love." Blair stretched out a tentative hand, expression uncertain but intention clear. The cool presence of her fingertip stopped just beyond the point of connection with his skin, and Chuck felt her trace the line of rucked flesh in the air to its apex, and thence to completion. "Stigmata," she said aloud. "Like the wounds of Christ."

"Don't pity me, Blair."

"Why? Someone ought to."

He turned to face her once again, noting the velvet quality of her eyes in the dark room. She was a mass of contradictions: dark tumbled hair upon gleaming white shoulders, gowned in the fairest of shades with her lips parted and flushed darker than blood. He swallowed convulsively. God had clearly designated her for his torture, and no apple upon any tree in Christendom could have possibly equated to this prospect: soft curves traced beneath white linen, darker shadows upon the lines of her skin like tongues of flame from the Holy Spirit.

"And don't look at me like that."

Her face flamed. "Well, _my lord_, perchance now would be the appropriate time for you to tell me what is to become of me? I do beg your indulgence for the inconvenience, but as we appear to be incarcerated here with no means of escape other than that key you seem so very unwilling to use, you may as well prepare me for the worst." Blair angrily shrugged off the coat Chuck had so gallantly – and heedlessly, in his own mind – provided, and set to shivering once again with great gusto. "I am not a great aficionado of Haggard romances and the like, but I do recall this being the point at which the hero either produces a hitherto unknown solution, or reveals himself as the villain. Which is it to be – or shall you remain a coward all night, scared of your own shadow that I might be standing in it?"

"Neither," he replied. "You are to be the sole stake in a card game between Carter and myself."

"Piquet? Faro? Whist?"

"Poker."

"I hope you are accomplished at the game."

"It is not I who will be playing."

A shadow passed across Blair's face, its gait laboured and struggling as she strove to conceal her emotions beneath a veneer of indifference. "So quick to betray me, de Valmont," she murmured, so quietly that it was as if he were not meant to hear her refer to him as the infernal Vicomte. She rallied after a brief moment, however, and eyed archly. "Why not play yourself?"

"As you have made eminently clear upon several occasions, there is no bond existing between us which entitles me to take your part; if freedom is what you desire of me, then I am afraid I shall have to disappoint."

"What else could I possibly desire of you?"

He looked away from her face, down to the little bare feet which were pale and violet tipped with cold. Sighing, he drew his coat over them, pausing only when a smaller hand gently alighted atop his own. When he did once again meet her gaze, it was glowing. Slender fingers ran over his knuckles, ghostlike up his arm, and then she followed the lean line of his nude shoulder with fingers which could hardly keep from trembling. It had not been his intention on this night to become embroiled as he had been before, only to offer her reprieve from the darkness. It seemed a crime that their pull was so very undeniable; a shame that her quivering lips held within their piteous shape all the allure of a fallen angel. What could she desire of him indeed: indifference? Restraint? He had none. She and he were concentrated inside one small space built for the purpose of loving, not fighting, and without reprieve he was going to go mad. Without escape, he was going to go mad. Assuredly, without her, he was going to become quite mad indeed.

Chuck shook his head and then kissed her, lightly, and then again, deeper, one hand moving with tender unconsciousness over the wounded shoulder as the other tilted up her chin, mouths caressing and quickening and seeming to sigh themselves with reunion. Blair traced the line of the piteous scar over and over again, and the naked flesh seemed to boil beneath her fingers, scalding them. What a wondrous thing it was, to feel the muscles shifting beneath his skin; how unbearably exquisite to know that he was alive, and to experience the thrill of their hearts beating in tandem through the thin lawn of her chemise. Her tears fell down between them, salt tang between kisses, and he kissed her eyes and her nose and her pale, tremulous lips over and again as she shook with terror and delight.

"If I lose," she whispered. "What then?"

"I will find you," he promised. "If I have to break the down the door of every house in London, I swear it, Blair – I will find you."

Ever after, Blair could never quite say how they found sleep that night. All she could rightly recall was that when the appointed time came, it found them curled about each other as closely as twins sharing one umbilicus, the moonlight filtering through the filthy windows and bathing them in bars of silver. Too much had been said to go back but she knew not, however, if worse was yet to come. If it was indeed a game they were playing – with so many advances and retreats and so much won and lost – then all that could surely remain of the board was ashes.

Perhaps that was why they were playing cards.

_**#**_

_**#~#~#**_

_**#**_

The hour of midnight tolled, and the gaming table was laid to the maximum advantage of the host, their dealer: brightly painted counters before him to hoard or divide, the deck at his elbow and a tumbler of finest cognac in his hand which Chuck promptly seized, drank, and sneered at. This did not put Carter in the optimum temperament, but the sight of Blair in her filmy white undergarments was more than enough to make him slew a crooked leer in her direction. Chuck's jacket was once again offered, but immediately declined. She took her seat at the table with a surprisingly polite 'good evening' to her opponent, who harrumphed at the sight of Chuck's blunderbuss resting ever so delicately on Blair's fair shoulder. Both smiled anew at his discomfort.

"May I inspect the deck?"

The cards were duly inspected and were found to be unmarked, unsharpened and in full working order.

"The rules?" Blair inquired.

"One hand, one round. Bets may be made in addition to your..._person_," Carter replied, with such subtlety that he may as well have worn a black hat and declared himself the villain then and there. "Winner takes all." He slid a pile of chips across the table to her, and Blair stacked them neatly before her. There had been little time between confessions and kisses the night before to discuss a game plan, but she was following her instincts: lie, lie, and lie until her tongue was as black as cinders. She tapped the table with two light fingers, indicating her concord to the draw.

Carter dealt. His face did not flicker.

Blair quietly despaired. She had been handed a two and a queen – hardly the most influential of cards. Timorously, she pushed two dark red counters towards the centre of the table, and met Carter's gaze without flinching. "Call the blind."

"The flop, then."

He turned over a king, an eight and a five. Blair bit her cheek and considered. She had a choice: play cautiously and let him know that she had a little knowledge of the game, or throw herself in recklessly and try and bluff through. Heedlessly, she threw a handful of gold markers into the pot and smiled at Carter, who whistled. "The lady plays dangerously."

Chuck put his lips to her ear. "Do you mind? That's ten thousand pounds you may have just thrown away."

"But I don't have –"

"Why do you think you're playing and I'm watching?"

Her heart seemed to swell a little at the cognac scented retort. Although there was more than enough money in the Bass vault to support a thousand such games, he had chosen to place himself on the line so that Carter could not raise the stakes any higher than she would be able to go. She still had a sizeable pile of counters left – why, this must be close to half of his fortune! They could both lose themselves in this endeavour, incontrovertibly, and yet...and yet he would still not declare himself, not at Almack's nor upstairs nor even this morning, when they had awkwardly risen and attempted to disentangle their still linked hands. He loved her, he had to...but how in the world could she be sure?

"Call," Carter said pointedly, adding his chips to the pile. He turned another card.

A three.

Blair's pulse began to pound. "A drink, perhaps?"

"Certainly." The decanter was drawn from the sideboard, and measures were poured. The three drank, both gentlemen as professionals and their lady with a paroxysm of coughing which caused her eyes to water. Chuck continued to worry the mechanism of the gun dangerously close to Blair's ear, and she swallowed.

"Another ten thousand."

"Raise," Carter returned coolly. "Twenty seven thousand."

"Raise," Blair repeated, and the blunderbuss juddered dangerously close to her cheekbone. "Thirty thousand."

"Raise. Thirty five thousand."

"Call."

The final card was turned, the spread laid out on the table like an accusing finger at Blair's poor hand: king, eight, five, three, ace. Her stomach lurched and she was sure that she would vomit. More tears sprang to her eyes, and Carter's blue ones drank in her anguished face with a look which was equal parts self-satisfied and licentious. She couldn't bear the thought of his hands upon her once again, fingertips probing her flesh, her maidenhead stolen in the most hellish of rapes. The metal weight upon her shoulder was suddenly too heavy, icy cold, and her head swam. It was beginning all over again, her malaise returned to bear carnal fruit. She would open her veins rather than let him lie atop her. She would run to the ends of the earth. She would appropriate the blunderbuss and kill him stone dead before he even got close to lifting her skirts. She would brazen out society, hope for the best hope that they understood she had been duped, been cheated...but no, no, all was lost. She was truly lost, and the thought drained her of all resolve.

"All in," Chuck said evenly, ignoring his swooning counterpart.

"You cannot fool me, Bass," Carter replied, arrogance casting a gloss over his vapid, pretty face. "She is on the verge of hysteria. I will not fold simply because you challenge me."

"Call it, then," Chuck said, manipulating Blair's limp hands in a sweep which pushed all her chips into the table's centre. A moment later, Carter's followed suit. He flipped his cards and chuckled.

"I think you will find that's a two pair, eights and aces."

Chuck arched an eyebrow. "Agreed." With one motion of the gun barrel, he flipped Blair's hand also. "But I think you too will find that with Miss Waldorf's two and queen here, we have a three, a two, an ace, a king and a queen: in short, a straight." He smirked. "Coincidentally, it is the queen of hearts and the king of diamonds who lead. How apt."

It took a comparably short space of time – during which Blair allowed herself a brief black period of approximately a minute – for Carter to become first very white, then very red, and finally as purple as twice boiled beetroot. He spluttered several incomprehensible expletives, stared at the cards, stared at his hand, and then turned very white once again. He gripped the table edge with one flailing hand, and the wood splintered. After this, he appeared to calm down a modicum. Tipping a wink towards the shaking Blair, still he addressed his remarks to the smug looking Basstard who hovered above her head like an avenging imp. "This changes nothing, Bass. You two will leave my house together after a night of absence, and she will still be ruined and unmarriageable."

"Maybe so," Chuck replied. "But then, if I were to shoot you, take up that admirable dress myself and help Miss Waldorf into my suit, we should not be in half so much of a pickle. London is used to my idiosyncrasies; it was I, after all, who first began to conjecture that perhaps faro was not the game of a gentleman, and decided to go in search of one I could make my own. There is an entire section of Almack's bearing the Bass name, and I was once discovered naked in the Thames with absolutely no recollection of what – or whom – I had been doing the night before. Now," he cocked the gun, and Blair swore she had never heard a sweeter sound. "I would like one very good reason why I should not put a bullet first in your balls, such as they are, and then one in your gut, and then another in your brain."

"I – I – I shall lend Miss Waldorf another set of clothes. You shall have every penny this house contains. I shall take Georgina, and depart; perhaps for the Continent, perhaps for America –"

"Perhaps, with one slight adjustment." The interruption was punctuated by the jacket Blair had used as coverlet the previous night once more alighting on her shoulders, warm and scented with spice and fire. She huddled into its folds.

"If Miss Waldorf is going to be cavorting about the place in any gentleman's clothes," Chuck continued, quite blithely. "They are going to be mine."

Blair was dumbstruck throughout what happened next. Waves of euphoria were robbing her of speech, movement, even coherent thought; she observed the emptying of the Lady Sparks' clandestine safe into Chuck's multiple pockets – both his and hers – and the very great delight her very unconventional white knight took in cracking Carter over the head with the blunderbuss and knocking him senseless. Once he had retrieved Carter's flask, pocket watch and petty cash from the hateful creature's limp body, he turned to Blair. Oh, how he blazed in the fading moonlight, in his ill-fitting clothes and with his dark eyes laughing at her: a young Apollo, perhaps – had the cognac really been that strong? – if only he were blonde. Chuck realised swiftly that she was still incapable of walking and simply added her to his not inconsiderable load before exiting, leaving Blair slightly wistful at the loss of her bold, brash, ever so daring dress, and light-headed with relief, liquor on an empty stomach, and general confusion. Such glorious sensations lasted out onto the pavement where he put her down, hailed a cab and bade the driver wait.

"What are we doing here?" Blair asked, when curiosity finally overcame her.

"You were right." A lock of hair, loosened by the night breeze, fell across Chuck's forehead. "Last night, you told me I was a coward, and you were right. I have spent my life in cowardice, in sin and in conceit, hiding from what I have long considered myself unworthy of: love. That may seem somehow noble and as if beneath it all, I was a better man; I was not. Hedonism and selfishness ruled me, and my arrogance that you should not change me was nearly our undoing."

Were those drums, beating in Blair's ears? Certainly it could not be her heart, beating that fast?

"I want to believe you," she replied, studying the unfamiliar cut of her sleeve. Her lungs burned with the crisp air, though that could not be all that ailed her. "But I cannot. You have hurt me too many times."

"You can believe me this time."

"Oh." She looked back up at him, surprised by the smile which singed his lips like a flame on paper. "And is that it?"

Silence. It reigned between them, as deadly and stealing a force as poison. The wind sighed though no birds yet sang, and the weather was unfeasibly clement for a night in London. The debutante season was coming to an end, and Blair had achieved her purpose: finding Serena the perfect mate. She had also been drugged, seduced, almost married, blackmailed, heartbroken, wagered, won...she had done and seen more than she had ever dreamed of, and all because of him. Icy, chilly girl that she had been, she had rejected his advances and snubbed him before the world – had she really? Had she truly almost fainted in his arms when they danced their first, when he called her by her name and bade her be stronger? Had she promised him all, offered him all, in the back of a carriage when he had fought for her honour in a garden by moonlight? What in the world had become of Eleanor Waldorf's daughter, beautiful and discreet, and why in the world did this – here on the street, in her borrowed man's clothing with what seemed to be a thousand years of scandal behind her – seem so much more proper and correct than any elocution or piano lesson ever had before?

Chuck Bass looked at her.

He was looking at her.

As if he might be able to see her.

And his mouth moved.

"I love you too."

Blair eyed him pensively. "Thank you," she said, and then climbed into the hackney. It rattled off, and Chuck remained in place, his mouth hanging open and his cravat half undone and feeling quite undone himself. Pinching seemed the done thing, but that did not yield an end to the hateful dream her cool reply had afforded.

"Thank you?" He repeated. "_Thank you_?"

It truly was a marvel with what speed agony – for she had truly cut him to the quick, of course, with the odious _thank you_ – became ire, and within a few moments Chuck was charging up the darkened street, hunting for a hansom as if his very life and soul depended upon it. He was Chuck Bass, damn it, and he deserved more than some trumped up, pale faced, frigid, arrogant, outspoken little 'The Honourable Miss' returning his ardour with a mere 'thank you'. He spent most of the cab journey to the Waldorf townhouse mentally flagellating the entirety of London society – Lily, Serena, Nate, Penelope, Georgina, Carter, the Almack's hostesses, Marcus, Catherine, dead Rufus Humphrey and his spawn _et al_ – for even bringing the bitch into his sphere in the first place, and the rest embroiled in several fantasies which involved dragging Blair around by the hair, shaking her until her bones jarred and stripping his clothes off her with his teeth.

Unfortunately, he could no longer divine which was the most appealing.

* * *

**_Unfortunately, I haven't lost my mind or taken any narcotic substances - it appears that I am just cruel by nature...kidding. I (or Blair) only blew off the ILY because I (or Chuck) wanted C/B to end this fic how they began: with fireworks, and with snark. Chuck's cab driver does take bribes, however: he likes nice, long juicy reviews with words which are not 'monkey's uncle' or 'I'ma cut you, biatch'. With such things, he drives like the Devil himself - or so I'm told..._**

**_One more ginormous shout out to Noirreigne, who continues to be the bread to my butter with her endless slew of gorge reviews. On an additional side note, my YouTube account _VanillaKismet_ contains an audio blog by yours truly telling the world why I think season four has been foreshadowing a Chair wedding like low density lipo-proteins foreshadow high cholesterol (i.e. a lot). Go and listen to it to laugh at just how English I am, if nothing else ;)_**

**_Chuck stands on a balcony and throws his cravats into a waiting crowd of:_ Stella296, blair4eva, hotlittlestarlet, D, svenjen, QueenBee10, anne, Krazy4Spike, notoutforawalk _(I almost put Voldemort on Chuck's back - it was that close)_, comewhatmay.x, abelard, TruC7 _(dear God, your analysis makes me so happy)_, SaturnineSunshine, Lalai, bethaboo, tvrox12, niinjjakiitten, vivalachair, Dr. GG _and_ louboutinlove _(yay for Lily love). Chuck wishes you all to know that his deepest feelings of course, reside with you all, and that he's more than willing to play a game of strip poker/snap/Uno with each and every one of you. He also wishes me to inform you that he has been practising his 'moves'.__  
_**


	21. Vingt: La Luxure

**_I am pleased and proud to announce that this chapter is rated M for a reason. If you don't enjoy the sex, then I'm sorry to say you're just going to have to read it anyway. There's important plot points in that there sexin'.  
Enjoy._**

**

* * *

**

**Vingt: La Luxure**

Blair pressed her face into the pillow and tried to ignore that which was, unfortunately, eminently clear: there was a lunatic trying to break down her door. Although she had expected consequences of some kind for her abrupt departure from his side after a long night of revelations, gambling and failed debauchery, she had at least bargained on a good day and a half's sleep – for it had to be the very early hours of the morning by now, at least – before she was forced to face Chuck and justify herself. Despite any outer play of languor, however, she could not deny that a choir of angels had settled somewhere about her navel and were now keeping her awake with an endless round of hallelujahs which sounded oddly like: _he loves me! He loves me! He loves me!_

"Miss Blair."

"I know, Dorota."

"Will you not go down?"

Blair raised her face from the crisp white linen and regarded her maid and foremost confidante thoughtfully. "What is your opinion, Dorota? Of my lord Mister Chuck?"

"That he will damage paintwork," Dorota replied.

"As a man, I mean."

"As a man?" There was a small huffing sound as Dorota pushed the air through her teeth, her blue eyes set. She then bit down upon her lip, and set to rearranging Blair's latest floral tribute: a vase of insipid, milk white blooms, no doubt sent by the formerly affianced Marcus Beaton. "I think he is proud, Miss Blair. I think he is rogue, but would like to be more of rogue than his heart say is good. I _know_ you are only lady he has ever met with on more than two occasions without – without –"

"Immorality taking place."

"Yes."

The knocking became louder, and Blair winced as the roaring repetitions of her name increased, both in volume and in frequency. She looked sheepishly at Dorota, whom she could have sworn was concealing a smile behind one work-roughened hand. "I have a decision to make, don't I?" She sighed. "He has every right to be angry with me, I fear. I called him out so many times, and when he rose to the challenge, I...I ran away."

"Miss Blair." And to the great surprise of both, Dorota bent and kissed her charge lightly upon the forehead. "You are good girl," the maid said firmly. "And you have good, kind heart. Even ten Mister Chucks battering the house down will not change that."

Blair sighed once more, drawing her robe towards her and slipping into the sleeves. "Very well, Dorota. Show him in."

The drawing room flickered orange and red, the fireplace and its blazing occupant the only light the space afforded. Chuck gazed into the serene brown eyes of Blair's portrait and felt the overwhelming urge to tear it from the wall and burn it. Vixen, how had she deceived him – that the price of her heart was a few paltry words, a quiet touch of sincerity? He had still not abandoned his plan of dragging her about the place by her hair until she agreed to love him properly and stopped behaving like a silly chit, though the barest minimum of logic he still possessed in the face of such a snub prompted him that a very great amount of screaming was liable to result, and not the sort of screams which best became a lady. Still, he had most probably roused the entire street with his knocking and deeply embarrassed himself besides, but who cared for that? She was irresistible; he could not rest until he knew whereof her damned 'thank you' had sprung.

Blair entered the room not a little tentatively, though she put back her shoulders and raised her chin and adjusted her robe – scarlet silk, and now she regretted putting it on – as though she had no qualms about facing her erstwhile lover. "What do you want, Chuck?"

"What do I want?" He laughed without mirth, shadows flickering across his face in demonic succession. "I think the problem lies with what it is that you want, precisely. I was under the impression that you necessitated a declaration in order to add me to your circus of fools. Tell me –" His eyes burned at her as the firelight shone in their depths, flame into flame. "Were Marcus and Carter your only other suitors, or is there some sort of trial by combat I have to undergo before my intentions toward you are explicit? What further games do you expect me to play?"

"My games?" Blair snapped. "I am not the one who was too afraid to confess until the very last moment! I was begging you to fight for me at every opportunity, with Marcus or with Carter or even simply as myself, I, Blair, asking you!" She lifted the hem of her nightgown above her bare feet and stalked toward him, only aware of the heat in the room when her cheeks flamed in protest. "You reserved those three, significant words until there was literally nothing else between us but to say them; how was I to know that it wasn't euphoria at not losing your fortune that prompted you to speak so, or relief that you were finally rid of Carter Baizen? You told me you loved me when you had no rivals, no witnesses, and nobody to judge you for letting such a thing slip!"

"There was no aberration in my judgement," he snarled. "I merely wished to fulfil your desire for me to –"

"So such words were for my sake? Oh, happy day!" Blair threw herself down on the chaise longue in manner utterly void of grace. "You extracted them from your repertoire simply to placate me, then?"

"No!"

"Then why?"

"Because, you arrogant, empty-headed little fool, I wanted to tell you the truth!" He glared at her, chest rising and falling with each furious exhalation.

Blair's expression softened not a jot. She glared back at him with all the venom she could muster, her own breathing rapid. How dare he speak to her in such as manner, and still call himself a gentleman! How dare he slander her so, in her own house! How the Devil could he dare to profess to love her when he treated her with such disdain? Such a smug, self-satisfied, canker of a man was he – why, she knew not how she could possibly love him at all! – and yet still she felt every part of herself drawn towards him, fractured when she could not touch him, not at peace when he was not at peace with her.

This would prove quite problematic.

"Well, you have certainly ruined everything." She stood to poke the fire, somehow more brazen in her red silk robe and proper nightgown than she had been even in the barest and filmiest of white. "What am I to do now, Chuck Bass? Consider myself scorned by you, and by the male species at large? I hardly care." Blair laid down the poker and the flames leapt up anew, casting flickering shadows over her face and hair. "I renounce gentlemen entirely; I shall retire to the country and keep cats."

"And is there not," Chuck inquired evenly, his tone as sweet as honey but his tongue more sour than whey. "Something you wished to say to me, in return for my confession?"

"No." Her eyes were heavy-lidded, teasing, dark as cherries with no distinction between iris and pupil.

He looked back at her blackly with no hint of humour. "Then I rescind my words: I hate you."

"I have always hated you."

"There is no one I hate more."

"Every nerve ending in the body is electrified – by hatred."

"There is a fiery pit of hate burning inside me, ready to explode."

"So it's settled, then?"

They had advanced on each other like warriors as they spoke, ready to do battle and slay dragons, if not one another. The heat in the room was tangible; each breath he took stirred the hair on her forehead, each tiny inhalation from between her lips like cannon fire. It seemed like no more could be said when he grasped the smooth curve of her throat, thumb pressed over the wildly beating pulse – better to hear the gasp when it inexorably came.

"We're settled," he replied.

There was no instigator of what began next, the sudden leap from bitter enemies to lovers in less than a heartbeat. Too long had Chuck and Blair been playing at lord and lady, ignorant of the animals they had unleashed in the other's breast. Time came apart, ripping at the seams as lips collided, battled, crushed and subdued each other, rising for air for mere modicums of moments before once again sinking, drowning into the long denied embrace which bodies had longed for and minds now knew to be true. She wrapped her arms around his neck, gripping on as tightly as if it were her only defence from going under. His lips parted – or were parted, by her insistent tongue and yielding waist beneath his hands – to the fierce union of their togetherness, finally, bound like the sash around her waist and already coming undone.

Chuck lifted her; in truth, he knew not what else to do. Neither of them would ever make it up the grand staircase to her bedroom, and he did not honestly wish to make a woman out of his woman in the entryway when patience was a necessary commodity. Likewise, the couches were all the way over on the opposite side of the room, and in sight of the window.

Blair felt herself being carried and didn't care that her robe had dropped to the floor and fallen away, most probably trampled. She knew when she alighted on something solid and they were of a height and she was fumbling, fumbling in the most unladylike manner imaginable for his waistband, slipping one fearless hand inside and letting the hard, glorious length of him fill her palm with a repressed shiver of nothing but triumph. She toyed with the taut skin, exploring it with her fingertips so that Chuck groaned into her neck, shaking his head over and over as if trying to bring home a point to himself.

"Won't...be able..."

Blair understood and pulled back as he decided upon a different tactic, rending the finely spun lawn of her nightgown along the line of her spine and revealing an expanse of lily white skin to the orange glow of the banked up fire. The sleeves became slack around Blair's wrists as she sighed, the still air puckering her nipples to hard peaks. She arched as he nuzzled one, first softly, and then began to explore this Newfoundland of flesh with insistent fingers, probing tongue. He circled the rose petal flesh with his lips, only risking to nip and bite when she was pleading, begging, her hands fisting uselessly in his hair as she stared blindly up at the ceiling. Her perfume rose to enwrap them, enshrine them and assault Chuck's senses, the sweet saltiness of her skin a curlicue of ecstasy between his waiting lips.

"Don't," she whispered when he paused to look up at her, and her eyes seemed shot through with gold.

"You'll like it," he promised, and then dropped to his knees to sample her core.

There were slender, unexpected muscles in her thighs from riding, each tautening to a further degree as his hands strayed beneath the remains of her nightgown. Chuck searched without hesitation for the centre of Blair, the place a heart of ice had melted and was trailing out heat.

She breathed out slowly when he parted her, too quickly when she felt his fingers stroking the soft outer flesh; all that remained of the white lawn was now puddled around her thighs. She could feel darkness all around her, caressing like velvet, and when he bent his head to kiss she stiffened and then collapsed, supine, spread-eagled on the pianoforte as the torture began.

He felt alive as she fell away, her trust and love for him a promise in the air, now spoken between them and free to grow wings. In tribute, he lavished butterfly kisses on the rosy skin, whispering soft adulations into her heat when she whimpered. He tasted her – the essence of her – with a darting, flickering tongue which left her moaning, crying out, imploring for she knew not what. He was a practised seducer, a lover of women and creatures far superior to herself, while she remained an innocent: naïve, until now, of the fire below, the blaze of her true self beneath eighteen years of frippery and lies. Her mother's words were of little consequence, for Blair was assured that Eleanor could never have felt was she was now feeling: union with a man in almost every way possible, still with more to discover and more to learn about herself, about them together. Whore? In her mother's eyes, she would have been. There was suddenly no greater satisfaction than the thought of her mother's face if she, Lady Waldorf, had discovered her daughter being made love to by the most infamous man in London on top of a pianoforte.

Then his tongue snaked inside her, and Blair thought she would go insane.

And she shook her head just as he had, understanding suddenly quite what she had been doing to him.

"You," she ordered, sweaty and sticky with her own lust. "I love you. I need you."

Blair couldn't restrain a roll of her eyes when he kissed her cunt in parting, leaving it with a promise of, 'better acquaintance at a later date'. She was laughing by the time he kissed her again, laughing at her own petulance, at the unfamiliar taste of her flooding her own tongue. Chuck stroked her hair, quiet for a long moment as he simply looked into her dark eyes, so star-scattered that any pleasure gained from his own performance was more than equalled by the fact that she was looking at him – not Nathaniel, his best friend and golden boy, nor the fish Marcus or the bastard Baizen, and certainly not for his pocketbook like every whore he'd ever fucked, pound notes the only presence in the room to make them scream.

"I love you too," he told her, and then pressed forward so that they were almost, nearly, achingly close.

The first pain as he entered her was to be expected; Blair had expected it, anticipated that it would be great as he broke past all her maidenly defences and made her sob with agony and delight. As she grew used to the sensation of his being there, of copulation – of being connected as men and women had always been meant to be connected – the sense of foreignness changed, subtly shifting to acceptance, wonder...

Belief.

Chuck kissed her temple. "We can stop."

"I cannot," she whispered. "God help me, but I cannot."

"Then I hope He redeems us both," came the reply, surer and stronger than hers.

Their dance began slowly, gently, the languorous kiss and the leisurely thrust and his smile as he heard her purr. There was a fire in Blair, and he was stoking it: another spark each time they parted and came together again, his flesh in her flesh, until sparks were not enough and she needed flame; heat. There could be no sweet lovemaking when it had taken a lifetime to bring them here, and while he may have been master of his desires, she was indubitably not of hers.

Blair raked her nails down Chuck's back and felt them bite through fabric, tearing through his skin to the animal – not the gentleman – she desired. He hissed, snarled out her name in warning as she did it again, again, lifting up her hips and pushing into him so that she met him and equalled him, his mate and his adversary and his love, now and forever. She felt the sparks begin to build with a tightening in her belly as the room become hotter and the sounds from her lips – was it truly her, making those guttural, wanton noises out loud? – became more desperate, the coiling inside winding tighter and tighter like a clock spring so that Blair saw and knew nothing, had nothing, but needed _this_, this promise, this everlasting gift as his fingers found the swollen nub just above where they surged together and teased her, coaxing her towards the end of the world.

She came apart in flames, spirals of glorious inferno that set her clenching around him and forcing him down with her. They rose together in a ring of fire, her head thrown back and his buried in her throat as dark delight swept through both, a starburst of pure ecstasy with a white hot surge. This was them, who they were and not who they pretended to be: complete, invincible when joined together, separated before by man but hereafter only by the hand of God itself, reaching down from Paradise to put what he had made asunder. They both came again, quickly, her leading like a storm lantern with the warmth of her sheath engulfing him, leaving blood drumming beneath skin and sweat cooling on backs and breath still coming quickly, still sparks shooting as he silently lifted and held her to him once again.

There they were, broken but whole in lightness and circumstance; intertwined and never to be free.

"Marry me," Chuck rasped, almost surprised not to be struck down by lightning as the words passed his lips.

And Blair – who in direct opposition to the teachings of her mother had gambled with a libertine, exposed her beating heart and surrendered her virtue on a pianoforte – simply bent her head to his and told him everything with her kiss.

* * *

_**Well, I hope you enjoyed that. It was written, unsurprisingly, directly after my very first viewing of 4x07, with the piano scene on repeat to guide the way. As much of a lover as I am of the final scene in 2x25, I wanted my Chuck and Blair to go up in flames together - there never was any question for me about their journey together not being a fight to the finish. Can you even remember back to chapter one, where Chuck eyed up Blair at Rufus' funeral, or their first kiss in chapter eight? I feel like we've walked a million miles since then - and I say we because that's me, Chuck, Blair, and a whole load of you amazing people cheering us on and poking them together with sticks. I will address how very orgasmic you all are in the epilogue, because I know if I start now you'll have a three thousand word chapter, and a ten thousand word essay on how much you all rock.**_

_**A shout out this chapter: to **_**TruC7_, who is not only a faithful reviewer but also one who analyses everything I write in chocolate sprinkled commentaries which are about ten pages long and which I plan on printing out and framing._**_** You rock my world.  
**_

_**I wanted your love, but you held back on the revenge. Thanks and kisses for last chapter go to:**_** bethaboo_ (my truly wonderful Twisted Sister_**_** who rivals Mrs McDreamy Meredith for her good sense, compassion and excellent hair)**_**, hotlittlestarlet, thegoodgossipgirl_,_ abelar****d, Lalai, QueenBee10, Syrianora****, Krazy4Spike,**** tvrox12, Stella296 _(I knew you wanted Carter's brains blown out, honey, but I couldn't serve up the guts when there was true love to configure!)_, Petite Poppy _(yours is the best kind of amnesia I have ever inflicted, hope the shower wasn't too terrible)_, SaturnineSunshine _(you know how I feel about you: word)_, HnM skinnys, annablake _(yes, I know yours was not a review, but even though you've left me I shall still love you ad infinitum)_, niinjjakiitten _and_ Star-crossed92 _(flowers? For me? You shouldn't have!). You really shouldn't have to ask what I wish you this chapter. If you need a reminder, just read it again._**

**_Just as a by-the-by: I tend to have an FAQ as the final chapter to my long fics. Please PM any questions you have about anything to do with TFB or my historical environs, or just how long it took me to find out whether Blair could actually get her hands down Chuck's Victorian pants. Love you.  
_**


	22. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

"Duchess."

Blair turned, the heavy looped skirts of her plum coloured gown sighing with the movement. The diamonds around her throat and above her brow glittered, casting dancing pinpoints of light around the room. She smiled. "My dear Vicomte."

"Might I request the pleasure of a dance – that is, if His Grace can spare you."

_Her_ Grace shot an arch look across the ballroom to where Chuck was lounging, scotch in hand, scowling intermittently in her direction as he surveyed the guests. Turning to face the vicomte once more, she could still feel his gaze raking her profile, heating her skin in the most inconvenient manner. Such a weak creature was she, faced with this handsome, genteel Frenchman and with her blood drumming at the attentions of the damned duke; yet it was the vicomte still waiting for her answer, his merry blue eyes fixed upon her flushed face.

"He can certainly spare me," she replied, slipping her fingers into his. "Lead on, Vicomte."

Serena rolled her eyes. "Chuck, you are grinding your teeth." She snapped open her fan, surreptitiously peeping at Blair from behind its delicate lace folds. "Louis Grimaldi, vicomte and virtuoso – I hear his talents on the pianoforte are unparalleled."

"As are my wife's." Chuck shot Nate a black look. "Perhaps if some infinitely stupid person had not thought it a good idea to mention a certain venture to the Moulin Rouge on our last turn in Paris, she might now be demonstrating them to our mutual satisfaction instead of cuckolding me with a Frenchman."

"You should not have been visiting a whorehouse."

"I was merely paying my respects to Lady Shafai, who has lately taken her business interests across the Channel." Across the floor, Blair tilted back her head and laughed. The glass in Chuck's hand gave an ominous crunch. "And she ought, by now, to trust my word."

"Oh, she trusts you," Serena replied. "But she is quite as jealous as you are, and the very thought of you with some nubile young French girl inflames her as much, I am sure, as the thought of her with the vicomte does you." She eyed the straining crystal tumbler. "It was ever so in love and war. Life has not been the same since the two of you married and stopped trying to tear one another's hair out."

"Your friend enjoys hair tearing more than she can say."

Serena grimaced and took Nate's hand for a dance, while Chuck continued to demolish the crystal and glare at his consort.

The vicomte was an elegant dancer, it was undeniable. Blair's main object, however, was to prove a point, and therefore while she enjoyed their many passes beneath the arches of joined hands and mirroring of steps, she took brief respite from the pleasurable exercise – though it was not the kind of pleasurable exercise she most esteemed – to shoot Serena coded glances: _does he see me_?_ Is he jealous_? _What did he say_? As the music swelled and died, the return communiqué suggested she might try a little harder. She smiled once again at her partner, brighter and truer than her usual courtly expression.

"Would you care to partner me at the gaming tables, my lord? I find myself greatly yearning for a game of faro, and in desperate need of a partner."

"With such an impassioned plea, how could I decline?" Louis raised Blair's hand to his lips, briefly brushing the white silk of her glove in a formal kiss. Although the sensation was certainly not equal to the red hot caresses another gentleman had once lavished upon her bare wrist, Blair felt a definite glow at the courtesy; possibly because the other gentleman in question was watching, and looking as if he wanted to throw something – possibly the vicomte – out of the window and drag her upstairs.

He could wait a little longer.

The gaming tables were set up in a small chamber off the main ballroom, and the chatter and laughter of paired couples contrasted starkly with the intensity of those who played alone. At least one table always had a poker game running – an homage to that fateful game, which had been repeated upon occasion with Chuck as challenger and Blair as terrified loser and surprisingly willing payer of the forfeit – but there were tables too for piquet, faro, whist, and even a roulette wheel making its steady revolutions as the great and good crowded around, yelling out their bets in the most vulgar of manners. Their Graces' parties and galas had become famous for the charming disparity they offered: while the duke encouraged an absence of inhibition with drink and cards freely available, his duchess could make or break a member of the ton in a matter of moments as she played at war games in the grand ballroom. As the lady herself entered the room, greetings were cheerfully called out from all corners. Blair smiled and nodded and even dropped a curtsey or two, but led Louis directly to the table she desired.

"Cards, Your Grace?"

"Cards."

For all he could dance, the vicomte could certainly not play faro. It passed beyond the point of losing prettily and began to enter the realm of embarrassingly bad. Blair began to despair of his card choices and deferring to him as a good hostess should; though she was more than prepared to fight to the finish, she could not deny a jolt of pure pleasure at the light, all too recognisable touch on the nape of her neck.

"A wager, Duchess."

She looked up at him, aware that the room had suddenly become very still. "You surely cannot wish to play with me, Your Grace."

"Oh no, Duchess." His gaze was intense, darker than sable, golden-brown irises singed and dangerous. "There are no words to express how very much I wish to play with you."

Blair closed her eyes for a brief moment, hoping to gain clarity along with better control of her motor functions. "The wager?"

"Your company," he said lightly, as if it were of no consequence, though his fingers were teasing the first ridge of her spine in a way which would have made even the sanest woman melt. "Just the pleasure of your company, if I win." Chuck bent down, his face on a level with hers. "If I win," he repeated, liquor-laced breath hot on her ear. His voice dropped to a whisper. "And I will win because I always win, and I always want you, and I could take you in front of all these people if I so desired. In any case –" He smirked. "I doubt you'll be able to stand up tomorrow. In fact, I'm sure of it."

"What game shall you play?" asked Louis, oblivious to the moment he had, for Blair, mercifully interrupted. "Her Grace had a desire for faro upon entering the room, but I fear my inferior skills have done her an injustice."

"Everyone's skills, Vicomte, do injustice to Lady Bass but my own."

"What His Grace wishes to say," Blair cut in, smoothing over the awkward moment. "Is that any Castor is only as good as his Pollux. I have disadvantaged you by eschewing a player of my own level and overreached myself with yours; do forgive me." She dared not turn her head, but continued in the same, even tone, "I would that you would answer the Vicomte's question. What is it that you wish to play?"

"Wild card."

There was an intake of breath from the assembled gamblers, rushing around the room like a great round robin of shock and delight. Wild card was surely the most dangerous game that could have been chosen – played with a single bet and based purely upon chance, only a single card was turned for each player, with the highest taking the pot. Each bet had to be equivalent before the cards were turned, and even if the first better offered five pounds and the second five thousand, the amount would still have to be matched. There was no backing out, no folding, and many a fortune had been lost to the turn of the wrong card.

Chuck assumed Louis' seat as he quit it, barely restraining an unseemly grin at her reaction. She who had once kept her feelings hidden was now as transparent as glass, and all of society could see it. The whispers followed them always, crowds parting at their approach: _did you see the duke and duchess_?_ Did you see her gown_?_ Did you see her face_? _Where can the duke and duchess have got to_?

"Are you ready to concede?" He murmured. "The French are all well and good for fans and ideals, but not to heat your bed."

"You are coming nowhere near my bed," Blair replied crisply, if in an undertone. "Deal."

The dealer was a discreet little man with a bald head, polished to a high shine. He bowed deeply to both players, then drew the cards towards him. "Her Grace plays first, but at what bet?"

"Ten pounds, I suppose."

"The lady bets ten, and His Grace's bet?"

"Twelve," said Chuck obstinately.

"Your Grace?"

"Match."

"Her Grace matches the bet, and draws first." The dealer whipped the top card from the pile, laying it first face down and then turning it that the congregated party guests might see. "Her Grace leads with the king of diamonds."

"How fortunate," Blair remarked. "For it appears that I have captured my husband, and might now carry him in a pack or change him for another."

The room guffawed. The dealer laid down the second card, this time delaying a moment before turning it to face the craning, straining, and generally ignoble ton. A great gasp rose from the company.

"The ace of hearts." Chuck tapped the upturned card with one finger. "And now we see where my wife's own truly lies. So that's – let me see –" He made of show of counting upon his fingers. "Twenty four pounds to me, and the pleasure of Her Grace's company for the remainder of the evening." He stood, and several lords and ladies had to jump backward in order to avoid a collision. "I would like to now pass the reins of this event into the excellent hands of the Earl and Countess of Exeter, who now await you in the ballroom. Goodnight." And he drew Blair's hand up from her lap, ignoring her blushes, and led her swiftly out of the room before the buzz of: _what a dastard!_ and _how very romantic!_ could commence. Sensing the unwillingness of her walk as they exited, he smirked and said, "To be quite honest, I was not explicit with my desires earlier. When I said you would not be able to stand up, what I meant was that you will be unable to stand up tomorrow because tonight, I plan on making your eyes roll back in your head to the sound of those charming purrs you are so wont to emanate when no one is around to remind you to be a lady."

"Fantasise all you like," Blair replied. "It will get you nowhere with me."

"A pity." They had reached the foyer, and Blair shrieked as Chuck swept her legs out from beneath her, heedless of her dress as he caught her deftly in a posture rather reminiscent of their wedding night and began to proceed up the staircase. She folded her arms and did her best to present a forbidding outlook, nevertheless buoyed by the way he carried her as if she were, regardless of all courtly compliments, lighter than air.

"May I walk?"

"No."

"Why on earth not?"

"I should think that was eminently clear." They rounded the newel post on the first floor and continued, the sounds of the party below dying away with every step. "If you can walk, then it follows you will be able to run. I have won you fair and square –" Her heart fluttered a little, and he continued. "And I mean to have your company – and my twenty four pounds, by the way – for as long as is necessary to prove my point."

"Which is?" When he did not answer, and merely kicked open the door to their bedroom in a way which made her shudder for the previously pristine panelling, she pressed on. "What is your point, Bass?"

The Ducal rooms were richly furnished, with deep carpets and a great stone fireplace where fires were always to be laid, no matter the hour. Darker and furnished in a style far more decadent and gothic than the airy, pastel hued Duchess' rooms, it appeared as if the suite had been decorated with seduction in mind: there was a plush bearskin rug before the hearth and a four poster bed swathed in crimson drapes with the Bass coat of arms and motto, '_Homo proponit, Deus disponit_' – Man proposes, God disposes – carved into the headboard and posts. To Blair, the room seemed as if someone had taken a long, hard look at the Bass family, and made a very daring move in the right direction. A more recent addition, however, was the pianoforte. It stood in pride of place by the window, despite a finer instrument in the music room downstairs, and had moved from the Waldorf residence to this one the very day that she had. The problem now lay with the fact that Blair could hardly look upon any pianoforte at all without blushing, prompting more rumours about what it was the duchess found so objectionable about music.

"My point?" Chuck repeated, and Blair was surprised at the edge of ire in his tone. "My point?"

Her surprise only intensified when he did indeed set her on her feet but, at the very moment she was set to rights, proceeded to plunge his fingers into the painstakingly crafted perfection that was her hair and set it free, sending pins flying in every direction and her tiara disappearing who knew where. Blair gasped as Chuck pulled her head back almost roughly, setting his mouth on the convex of her throat and beginning a soft, slow diatribe which was quite as seductive as it was dangerous.

"Unless you have neglected to remember them – which would be wise – I recall three separate men you have now danced with, flirted with and thrown in my face. I thought I had made myself clear –" And his teeth nipped at her pulse point, scraping against violet scented skin with a kind of restrained ferocity. She felt weak, so very small and kitten-like and useless that she did not object to her conveyance to the bed as Chuck persisted with his lecture, making a slow tour of her jaw with his tongue which filled Blair's nostrils with the scents of pomade, cologne and liquor and made her body quake. "I thought I had expressed adequately," he continued. "Quite how much you mean to me because, dearest beloved sweetheart Waldorf, you belong with me. By law, you belong _to_ me." His voice shaded blacker, hotter, two pairs of hands curling into the coverlet as his body covered hers and bore her down, restraining any attempt on her part to gain some friction. "No," Chuck murmured, the velvet darkness in his voice like the voice of the devil in her ear. "None of that, my love." He bit down gently upon the delicate lobe of her ear, drawing a sigh and a moan from Blair which satisfied no one. "Such a shame," he whispered. "I had hoped to return from France and see my dearest wife; I suppose I'll just have to fuck you instead."

Blair flinched at his crudeness, feeling her belly tighten simultaneously as he slowly began to denude her of her gown, taking care with each eye, each button and each hook. Every moment cost her dear in a little more agony as Chuck took the time to continue his persecution between layers: a finger tracing teasingly across the tops of her breasts, white hot kisses lavished across her belly and thighs, the quiet continuation of his speech. "I had thought to arrive home with some very particular pearls Arthur looked out for me, but in ten short minutes I find that Nate has forestalled me, you have arranged a ball and are now not speaking to me." He teased her with two clever fingers, only the tips softly entering and pulling free as she arched, pressing into his hand in the hope of more. "I had thought to tell you that you have quite ruined the debaucher's life for me, for when any pretty girl propositioned me, all I could see was you." One finger sank to the knuckle, and Blair bucked. "I had thought to tell you that my business associates now think me half mad for leaving ten days early in order to rush home to my _wife_, but perhaps not."

"Chuck..._please_..."

He laid his mouth upon her bare white shoulder, gently stroking her inner flesh until Blair thought she should die of it.

"A little louder, please. I want them to be able to hear you downstairs."

"I...you..."

Chuck casually began to slip out of his own clothes, one-handed and still atop her, a feat which would have probably been applauded were there an audience present. Blair sighed at their naked flesh together, her breasts flattened against his chest, legs tangled and mouths even more so. Her lips were red, swollen and bruised. Her throat was a battlefield, ravaged with bite marks and deep purple halos. She felt alive in every part of herself, relieved even with her tension unrelieved, birthed from hellfire when he pushed all the way home and she ached from so much waiting. She whimpered and writhed, locking her legs behind his back and clinging to him with arms and hands and nails, needing the closeness of his body and the reassurance of his dark voice urging her onward. A few frantic moments of rocking brought her to a glorious cliff edge, and she threw back her head and cried out his name as thunder crashed in the quiet room, lightning exploded behind her eyelids, and they rode out the storm together in one long ripple of passionate triumph.

In the light of the dying fire, he lay against her back, hands still locked together in semi-desperation as they quieted, each quake and aftershock a little less resonant and each breath a little more even. She closed her eyes as he buried his face in nape of her neck, and dissent seemed little more than a dream as the blackness around them became first tangible, and then all-consuming.

"Love me?" She whispered, entwining their fingers still tighter as her eyelids drifted shut.

"Always."

_Fin._

* * *

_**To all the reviewers of last chapter, I bequeath Chuck's talented fingers**** and several tiaras. Thanks to:**_** niinjjakiitten, hotlittlestarlet, TriGemini, vivalachair, QueenBee10, Ellen, Dr. GG, katrina, P, tvrox12, notoutforawalk, abelard, Krazy4Spike, SaturnineSunshine, svenjen, bethaboo, blair4eva, TruC7, Lalai, louboutinlove, HnM skinnys, CBBW3words8letters, cj-the-greatest, Syrianora, comewhatmay.x, Ali _and_ CBfanhere. _If you don't get a Victorian sex time warp for Christmas, Santa and I are going to come to blows. _**

**_I don't think there are words, really, to describe how I feel right now. As sad as I am that The Fire Below has to end and I have to let my Chuck and Blair go, what comes across most overwhelmingly is the feeling of gratitude. I began this fic back in March with very low expectations as my first historical fic, _Harmony & Hedony_, ran out of inspiration and was deleted after about a week. From the very first, however, I felt loved. I felt wanted. You told me that you enjoyed my writing, that it touched you, that it made you believe that true love was possible. You waited patiently as I trashed draft after draft and moaned about my lack of inspiration. When the barrage of bad hit and I was ready to give in, you helped me to walk tall. So in this, the final chapter of The Fire Below, I'd like to thank all of you - reviewers both faithful and infrequent, those who put me on alert or favourite or even read me at all - for sharing nine months of your love, your enthusiasm and your incredible personalities with me. Thank you for your time, your belief, and your friendship._**


	23. Outtake 1: l'Espérance

**_Many of you said that you were disappointed not to see the wedding night, and I 'um'ed and 'ah'ed and fobbed you off with excuses because, at the time, I couldn't write it - I tried, but I didn't know how. Then I saw that I had 498 reviews, and that 498 times, you had taken the time to share your opinions, your encouragement and your brilliant humour with me.  
I wrote it.  
So here is your reward for being such fantastic companions, for taking me to 500 reviews which have made writing and being a writer worthwhile: only last go around, just to clear the pipes and one last rendezvous to make milord and milady's love official.  
The lines quoted are from Shakespeare's sonnet 40 (I held off on the Byron for once).  
Enjoy.  
_**

**

* * *

**

**Outtake #1: l'Espérance**

There were high spots of colour on Blair's cheeks, red hot against her cool fingertips, and her entire body quivered. Each tremor lent an unbearable quickness to her heartbeat, to each passing moment as she sat before the mirror, quietly studying her reflection. A ladies' maid – lent by Serena, for Blair had been adamant that Dorota was to be a guest at her wedding, and in truth she was mother of the bride in all but name – bustled discreetly in the background, smoothing the richly embroidered bed linen and plumping the pillows with practised ease. The looks she shot her temporary mistress were awed, and Blair smiled; she knew she glittered, from the riot of pearl headed pins in her upswept coiffure to the diamond lilies sparkling at her throat. Her hands were folded neatly in her lap: crimson ruby heart still gleaming on the right, but now quietly outshone by the exquisitely cut diamond and its companion band on her left. A vein from that fourth finger was meant to run directly to the heart, and Blair wondered if such a thing could be true, and if so how many more such channels her heart could endure before it exploded and simply let everyone in.

"Would you like me to dress you for bed, Your Grace?" The maid inquired, making a little bob as she did so.

Blair saw the flicker in the mirror as the door sighed open and reflexively closed her eyes. She was veritably quaking in her seat, and was not sure what the result would be if she saw what she knew she would see were her eyes open. She could have screamed with expectancy, cried out with anxiety or sighed with desire – none of which were particularly ladylike emotions to display, especially in front of the help.

"You may turn down the bed and go, Larissa."

There was a quiet sound of acquiescence, and then the door closed with a gentle click.

Then it was just they two in the room, with the whole world feeling as if it had contracted to a point, the heart of a star in its ascendancy. She didn't need to hear him to know he was behind her, and she bit her lip as his warm fingers slid tortuously down the column of her neck and along her collarbone, highlighting the flesh with a string of unending, unrelenting sparks. Engagement – a word which had at first seemed to suit them well, being but another synonym for skirmish – had been long and arduous on both sides, the fiery, feral lovers of that single perfect night forced back into their own skins by the mutual powerhouses of Dorota and Lily, who had taken it upon themselves to chaperone any and all interactions. It had to be seen that he had changed and that she had ended her previous understanding for the right reasons; they had to be, for a brief time at least, exactly what society expected of them.

So she shuddered as his lips touched her throat with a potency that almost stung. "_Chuck_."

"I would have been here sooner if I'd known you needed me."

"I always need you."

"What an ecstasy of waiting this has been," he murmured, carefully unclasping the necklace he himself had gifted her and letting it slither from his palm into hers. The diamonds were briefly icy in Blair's palm, and then they dripped to the floor as his teeth grazed the first ridge of her spine, the second, the third. She swayed and he held her in place, and it may as well have been the first time for all her knees were shaking.

"I want to ask something of you," Chuck said quietly.

"Anything."

"Tonight should have been your first. I could not have refused you for all the world, but tonight should have been your first." She looked in the mirror and her eyes were black; his were unreadable. "So while I'd like to taste you again, I won't. While I'd rather like to see how far you can bend and how far you can bend me, I won't."

"What will you do, then?" She asked, and was almost afraid of his answer.

"Love you," he replied simply. "The very best I can. Now stand up, please."

She did so without hesitation, and he rose with her, drawing her to him as carefully as if she were some precious thing made of glass that might shatter with too much pressure. Unendurable sweetness swept through Blair as Chuck kissed her, softer than their first kiss, each press of his lips to hers a little warmer, a little longer. He did not speak, but began to softly pluck the pins from her hair, one by one, as slowly and leisurely as if he were plucking cherries. Each mounted pearl shimmered as it shifted, daring white and half a lie, half a truth to the virtue and timidity of its owner. As each one was painstakingly removed, Blair felt a little lighter; by the times the last one was gone, and her hair tumbled down in the dark riot of curls she had so loathed as a child, she felt almost faint. Still the kisses went on, his lips parting to breathe her in, fingers passing oh so softly over her hair as if he were still afraid to touch. She did not think they had ever been so uncomplicated with one another, so gentle in deed, and in all honesty she had not known that they could. They broke for a few moments and he held her, her head tucked neatly beneath his chin.

"I love you," she whispered.

"And I love you," he returned. "With all my heart."

She remained quiet, as easy in his arms as a kitten as he began to shell her of the heavy wedding dress, held and supported by so many layers of petticoats. Such moments might have been their undoing but, Blair reflected, she had done well in marrying a man who knew his way beneath half the skirts in London. Yet even in this, he was different – different from the man he had been before – and she tried to breathe evenly as each piece of her armoury was lost. He touched every inch of her skin once it was bare, the newly exposed shoulders, the ever shifting shoulder blades, the gentle familiar slopes of her cheekbones as she closed her eyes. Chuck seemed to be trying to see her as a blind man would, sensing her essence by touch alone; it was this which gave Blair the courage to set her own fingers to work on the tiny pearlised buttons of his waistcoat and the shirt beneath. They worked in perfect harmony until headiness received them, naked chests pressed together so that warmth might permeate the very air they breathed.

"Chuck Bass is a romantic." Blair let her fingers drift over his torso, over the harsh lines which littered his back. "Who knew?"

"Now you do." He tilted up her chin, dark eyes meeting darker. "That's all that matters."

One more kiss, perhaps erring a little to the familiarity of acknowledged lovers. Blair let her head fall back to savour the feeling, and even as one kiss slipped into two Chuck carried her to bed. She feared the reverence of his touch as much as she was compelled by it – they made her feel too breakable, those feather light wisps of sensation that twisted away from her as soon as they had come: his lips on her ribcage, the slow removal of her stockings where the sigh of silk was almost as erotic as the delicate strokes that followed to grace her flesh. Her eyelashes fluttered, and silently she simmered.

Chuck watched the gathering moonlight fall on an already pale face and wondered at himself. He had never thought further ahead in his life than the next girl, the next glass, the next line of Byron to quote his plans to fruition; he had never considered the possibility of there only being the one girl, he and she alone for the rest of their lives. He had never considered the possibility that there could be another creature like himself, one who did not fear or lust with no grounds, but Blair...they were two persons so alike and yet so strikingly different that he hardly wondered at her power over him, her crippling allure anymore. Her fierce temperament had led to a fierce play of virtue, his to amorous acts which had been spoken of all over London, while the quieter parts of his soul were taken over by self-doubt and an innate belief that he was not worthy of love. She loved him – that in itself was miraculous.

He had never been loved before.

Her hand found his, even with her eyes shut, their fingers locking together with palm to palm in holy palmer's kiss.

Exquisite silence burned up the air as they came together, and Blair breathed easily for what could have been the first time. There was a subtle rawness to this coupling, unquenched by anyone's desire for sanctity and firsts and the flawlessness of land uncharted. It was relief, a starving fulfilled, an ache soothed and a longing calmed. It was unhurried, deliberate, each movement measured and punctuated with a whisper or caress. She was unsurprised at the tears which slipped so easily from her closed eyes, undeterred as they mixed with the taste of him when he kissed her until the world began to spin, absorbing a little of her thirst from closeness and returning it with like. They clung to one another as drowning swimmers, as bastards of the world, as souls born to be and just to be: together.

"Take all my loves, my love," Chuck quoted, feeling the tension of the body beneath him like a tide all too willing to draw him out. "Yea, take them all."

"What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?" Blair replied, though delight and darkness were making her breathless.

"No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call."

"All mine was thine before thou hadst this more."

The last kiss was an opiate, lace-wrapped venom that felt every portion of skin fuse, a ravelling and unravelling of limbs, torsos, hearts over hearts. She no longer led but was guided, smoothly, as if it had been rehearsed, to a far place of light and delight which burned candle flames behind her eyelids. Instead of rising as she had once before, Blair felt herself pressing deeper into the mattress as a million butterflies whirled free from her fingertips and flew towards heaven. There were the convulsions, the golden ecstasy of completion all around her but she was free – liberated, and now truly and officially so, bound with a tie that was stronger than words or wisdom – and she was with Chuck. Such happiness was surely mutually exclusive, reserved for him and them alone.

She opened his eyes to find him watching her and smiled, running her fingers along the elegant sweep of his cheekbone and feeling him inhale the scent of her skin. "I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief."

Chuck smirked. "Although thou steal thee all my poverty."

"No Byron tonight?"

"I thought you deserved some Shakespeare."

"Hmmm." Blair considered him, the teasing leaving her face and her tone and leaving it grave and beautiful. "Is this...is this enough for you? Is it enough to be with me, to have me defined by my being with you? Is it enough to be Blair Waldorf's husband as well as Chuck Bass?"

"I believe you've forgotten something."

"Yes?"

Chuck smoothed back the dark hair from her brow, turning on his side and pulling her with him. They lay together, still connected as if by one umbilicus, curled about one another like foetuses with only the stars left to bear witness.

"Half a man," he said slowly. "Can never be worthy of love, and yet you found me lower than that. I debased myself in order to prove a point made to me by my father because I was sure it was the right one; I debased you because I was sure you were wrong to feel for me as you did."

"And?" Her voice was a thread of sound.

"It was fear, Blair, nothing more. You loved the sum of me as if I were a whole, you took me to task on my life and forced me to face the world as if life were meant for more than just sinning until one could sin no more." So close were they together that their lips brushed with every word, and Chuck closed his eyes once more to feel the blood beating beneath her skin. "So when you ask me if this is enough, I cannot give you the answer you seek. My answer is that it will never be enough, so I will chase you a little more each day and find myself a little more absolved, because being with you for one day could never be enough when I could be with you for all the days of my life."

"What about Chuck Bass, seducer of women, consummate bachelor and scourge of society?"

"Silly girl." He brought her in that bare inch closer, that bare inch that spelled everything and nothing between them. "I'm not Chuck Bass without you."

In the morning, Blair would lie abed too long and feign awkwardness and bashfulness for the sake of the maid and Serena. Chuck would be drawn from her presence like a leper, and every kind of female attention would be heaped upon her now that her 'due' had been paid. But for now – for minutes that stretched into hours, from dusk until dawn – she was contented to lie and to be held, and to make love and be loved because, in the end, it was the only thing on earth that really mattered.

In the end, love made everything outrageously simple.


	24. Outtake 2: l'Esprit

**_It seems that, no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to get TFB out of my system. I blame you lot for being so damn persuasive - I was inquired of on Formspring whether I'd be doing another outtake (and there wasn't even supposed to be one outtake, I just miss my Victorian Chair so), and as the story ran mostly along the lines of season two (albeit with a wedding at the end of it), the original epilogue was based on some of the more amusing parts of the beginning of season three. So, here it is, outtake number two for your perusal - anonymous asker on Formspring and beloved readers in general, I hope you enjoy it._**

**

* * *

**

**Outtake #2: l'Esprit**

She knew she was desirable – she could feel it both within and without her, seeping from every pore. The delicate lace covering her décolleté was a mere wisp, after all, and the lines of her form were undoubtedly cool water to a man long parched. She knew he couldn't have lost all the rage, the hunger, the fire, the lust, the constant yearning to traverse every inch of a new discovery and tear it to shreds. She knew she could see it all in his eyes as she moved closer, pressed her chest against his, stretching up on her toes and parting her lips.

"Isn't it better to wait?"

"How long?"

The almost imperceptible turning of the door handle, a sudden breeze for ambience. He looked over the pretty blonde head, met the eyes framed in the face framed in the doorway. "Now."

"What in the name of Heaven is going on here?"

There really was nothing like a duchess on her dignity. Blair swept into the gazebo with a kind of furious majesty, the sumptuously light fabric of her summer gown billowing around her as she stalked across the floor towards them. Chuck put up his hands to warn her off, with the additional advantage that he could give the girl currently trying to climb him like a tree a small push and send her tottering backwards and directly into his wife's path. He smoothed down his collar, his cravat, attempted to smooth his ruffled expression and attempt a look of shock or contrition.

"Blair, I can explain –"

She gave him a look which could have felled a charging bull and then turned on his companion. "Shame on you, Lady Eva." The girl was trying to straighten what was practically a petticoat, avoiding Blair's eyes. Blair, however, would not be gainsaid by any lack of response or responsibility taken. "How could you do that," she said quietly, with something in her tone that suggested river water, black ice. "Try to seduce a married man? And worse –" She placed one hand over the proud curve of her belly. "A man whose wife is in such a delicate situation? Have you no pride, no self-respect?"

Eva's eyes flickered up to Blair's, bright blue and shining with tears. "I did not mean...I did not know..."

"Oh, and despite the fact that you received an invitation to the _Duchess_ of Richmond's garden party, you were under the bizarre apprehension that there was in fact no duchess?"

"I –"

Blair passed within breathing space of Chuck as she stepped closer to the girl, so close that her perfume filled the air and he had to lean back, pressing himself against the wall to avoid her politely spoken ire. "Your uncle may be the French ambassador, and you may have had your picture in The Times' society pages one too many times for that vain _Parisienne_ head of yours, but that does not give you the right to try and steal another woman's husband!" She heaved a dramatic sigh, and the rise and fall of her breast refracted a thousand points of light from the diamonds at her throat, sending rainbows spinning blindingly around the room. "Now, if you please, take your scandalously unbound hair and your overly powdered skin and get out of my gazebo!"

The girl was sobbing by the time she escaped, flinging open the door and letting it slam behind her with a bang which lent to silence taking possession of the room for a good moment or two.

Chuck bit down on his smirk. "Good afternoon, love."

"She was pretty." Blair gave another artistic sigh before letting herself slip sideways into his arms, her lips brushing his even as she spoke. "And I got wonderfully jealous while I was trying to find you."

"Did you?"

"I did."

"Let me make it up to you."

There was a wonderful gloom in the gazebo as they reacquainted themselves, casually indulging in a kiss here, the odd bite or nip to shoulder or neck there. The heat of the day reached in through the shuttered windows and raised beads of perspiration on Blair's skin, her diamonds blessedly cool as she pressed yet closer to Chuck, letting her body yield against his as it had so many times before. He was engaged in a rapturous tour of the right side of her clavicle and stopped abruptly, prompting an inelegant frown to snap into place between her eyebrows. He ran his thumb over the indentation, trying to level out her annoyance. "You know I always want to, with you."

She pouted. "Which is why I, of course, am being punished for something which is entirely your fault."

"My fault? If I recall correctly, I was not the one who pounced and revealed her penchant for gazebo floors almost directly after construction had finished."

"I wanted to say thank you."

"You could have just brought me breakfast in bed," he replied silkily.

Her arms wound around his neck, tracing the nape of his neck above his shirt collar. "Yes. But don't I do that every morning?"

"Blair..."

"Yes?"

He gave a groan at the devious look of innocence on her face and kissed her anyway, pulling slightly on her plush bottom lip so she gave a moan and began to scratch lightly at his scalp.

"Chuck," she murmured. "You're corrupting our son."

Chuck ignored her, though one hand did drop to caress the bump which was making their everyday rituals – breakfast, blackmail, deportment, deception, seduction on every available surface – that little bit more difficult. "You like to play," he returned. "I blame you for corrupting our daughter."

"You don't want a boy?"

"I want a boy _next_."

"But why in the world would you want a girl?" Blair inquired, quite absorbed in what he was doing with his teeth and the methodical destruction of her left sleeve, but she felt she had to ask. "Every man in the history of men has wanted a son and heir, with that being one of the foremost reasons behind matrimony. I daresay if you could birth children yourself, you wouldn't bother with wives at all."

"If you recall, I married you because I had already devalued you and already knew what I was letting myself in for."

She slapped him on the side of the head, and he bit her on the shoulder. "Still," she continued, apropos of stifling a little cry as his mouth moved towards the swell of her – newly endowed, newly reinforced – breast. "Tell me why you want a girl."

He smiled into her skin as her grip tightened on his neck and each word from her lips became a little more breathy. "Is it so wrong of me to want a house filled with little yous?"

"So there are going to be more after the girl and boy?"

"Oh, yes. Oh, yes."

"Oh, yes," Blair repeated, though hers was of a somewhat different nature. "It is perfectly safe," she told him. "Dorota told me so the third day I threw crockery at someone's head and she deduced that you and I had not been spending enough time together."

"Good."

"Bass?"

"Mmmm?"

"It isn't that I want you to stop what you're doing, because I'd really rather you didn't. I do, however, have something to say."

"Hmmm?"

And all at once, Chuck's face had left the delicately scented centre of his current exploration and been yanked painfully upwards by the loving hands of his wife, who had seized two hanks of hair behind his ears and pulled. He was about to make some sort of retort about playing rough when he noticed the impenetrable blackness reigning supreme in her eyes and thought better of it.

"Never again," she hissed. "Never again decide to get up and leave me in the middle of the night because you think the baby and I need more room in which to spread ourselves. I cannot sleep properly without you and when I wake up and you are not there I have a tendency to get very, very angry with you."

"How angry?"

"Don't you dare kiss me."

"How angry?"

"Come any closer and I'll scream."

"You'd better believe you will."

He bent to kiss her and she snapped at him, nipping at the space where his lips had just been. Chuck scowled.

"At this point, you are incredibly lucky that you have a Bass _in utero_."

"Oh?" Her eyes widened in faux ingenuousness. "And why is that?"

"Because otherwise I would spank you soundly for that."

"You could still spank me," she offered, and he laughed.

"My dear, depraved wife. How in the world did I ever find you?"

Blair appeared to be considering the question. "I do believe it involved a funeral, a dance, a bet, several cups of tea, a blindfold, a rescue, a kiss, a few more kisses, another rescue, several hands of cards and a good deal of being star-crossed before we actually got anywhere." She tucked her head neatly beneath Chuck's chin and arched a little in contentment. "And you were very stubborn at some points...but I always knew you loved me."

"How, pray tell?"

"Why," she replied. "Because you never bent me over a piece of furniture and had your way with me. Holding back is the ultimate sign of commitment from you."

"I thought that was getting married."

"That was for the dress."

"Ah, I see." He began to run his fingers up and down the pale swoop of her throat, feeling each humming vibration and cadence of breathing and speech. "So if I were, perhaps, very desirous of seeming committed to you in both body and soul, I would be piously avoiding you right now."

"As piously as a saint."

"Indeed."

"Yes." Blair gripped his lapels and turned her face up to his, a few dark curls slipping free from her already unstable coiffure and sliding gracefully down her back. She smiled. "But as the world, for all its failings, is determined to think of you as a lying, wenching, adulterous Basstard without even the courteous capability of being able to pretend you aren't in love with your wife, who am I to naysay them?"

Chuck studied her in the still dark, still stifling room, letting his gaze linger on the fresh glow on her skin, the brightness in her eyes. Without her he had become a sickly weed, ugly and selfish and clinging like a damnable plant to any and all news of her. She, however – despite all his fears to the contrary, despite his sudden flight to the city for a week and a half for every book, every physician when she had told him she was with child, despite all thoughts of his mother whom had nearly been lost to his birth and then whom he had lost anyway – was blossoming like some rare flower from the Orient now resident in his glasshouse, finding in its roots beneath the strange summer sun and coaxing him to grow straight and tall that she might be proud of him.

"Do I love you?" He asked her, waiting for her to flare up at him or slap him or at the very least demand to be made love to to prove her point. Instead, Blair looked back at him very quietly, looking – to Chuck's eyes at least – suddenly older and far wiser than he, for all she was a bride fresh out of her debutante season and he was a libertine of many years standing.

"Yes," she whispered, and then kissed his bruised mouth so gently he could hardly tell that it was a kiss at all. "And I love you too."


End file.
